by Gary D. Svee
Max’s voice squeezed between clenched teeth. “What the hell do you think I’ve been thinking of? I haven’t thought of anything else since she stepped off the stage.”
“Jake, she’s a good woman, and the idea that that bloated banker is playing fast and loose with her reputation makes me want to break him apart, a little at a time.”
Rage overtook Max again. He growled and jerked to free his arm from Thomsen’s grip.
“Max, there’s a better way. We can shake Catherine loose and let the banker punch himself in the nose. The first thing is that you’ve got to put on your best poker face, and then we’ll need a little help from my friend K.O. here.”
Thomsen held up a small glass vial filled with a clear liquid.
They stepped out of the back room ten minutes later. Phillips watched as Max took his seat at the bar. He started to rise. “Best be going. It’s past my bedtime.”
But Thomsen overheard the banker. “Thanks, Aloysius. I was going to buy a round for the table, but if you’re going, I’ll save a little money.”
“He ain’t going anywhere,” Hawks said, jerking Phillips back into his chair. “Long as you’re buying, the night’s young.”
Thomsen shrugged. Max sat at the bar, playing poker in his mind. Jake had dealt him a winning hand. All he had to do was keep a poker face and a low profile, at least for the next half hour. He was halfway into his second beer when Hawks called from the table again.
“Max, your ears are red. Must have been hot in that back room, or maybe somebody is talking about you.”
Max turned around on his stool and lifted his mug to toast the table. The grin on his face was hard as the rimrock above the dugout.
“Ears get red, I know I’ve had enough to drink.” He pulled a double eagle out of his pocket and tossed it to Thomsen. “Give me a bottle, and let ’em drink up the change.”
Thomsen growled loud enough for everyone in the saloon to hear, “When Max Bass buys for the house, you know he’s had too much to drink.”
A spattering of good-natured laughter followed Max into the darkness. Everything was going according to plan. Now, to hide the horse in the copse of trees down by the river and sneak into the back room to await the results of the drops that Thomsen had just put in the banker’s drink.
It was nearly two o’clock in the morning when Max pointed the mare’s nose home. Above, the sky was lit with stars and wide as forever. Below walked Max and the mare, their journey not even a scratch on time.
As they plodded along, Max drank at the bottle, sips at first and then long pulls. He paused at the hill above the solitary cottonwood. Catherine was awakened by the sound of his laughter, echoing up the creek bottom loud enough to quiet the coyote that had been barking from the ridge.
“Son of a bitch,” the banker Phillips whispered.
The cold had awakened him, and he quickly realized he had the granddaddy of all hangovers. He lay with his eyes shut tight against the pain. He would have liked to have groaned, but he didn’t think he could tolerate the noise.
“Son of a bitch,” the banker Phillips whispered again.
As his head began to clear, he realized that he was cold. What the hell? Somebody had stolen his covers. His eyes opened in slits. Middle of the night; the stars were still bright.
Stars?
Phillips lurched into a sitting position, and the movement transformed his head into a bass drum. The banker tried to ignore his hangover long enough to take stock. He wasn’t in his bed: He was alone out on the prairie, and … he was naked! Stark naked! Not a stitch! Not even socks! As that realization jolted into his brain, Phillips reached down reflexively to cover himself and lost his balance. He rolled over a prickly pear.
“Son of a bitch!” the banker Phillips roared. He felt his head split and his brain fall out, bouncing on the ground: BOOM! BOOM! When the spasm passed and some semblance of reason had returned, the banker eased himself to his feet, carrying his head as though it were chock full of dynamite and would explode at the slightest jolt.
Nothing. Not a road, not a tree, not a hill, nothing. Phillips was in the middle of the big empty, and he didn’t know how he had gotten there or how he would get out. He wrapped his arms around himself. He didn’t want to shiver. If he started shaking, his aching head would fall off.
He’d had hangovers before, but never anything like this, not even when he drank that green grain alcohol brewed on the Musselshell and seasoned with juniper berries. A wave of nausea swept over him, and he crouched hands on knees until it passed.
He had blacked out before, but never had he awakened on the prairie in the middle of the night stark naked.
Fear was building in Phillips, rising from his gut and winding around his throat. The prairie was home to wolves and coyotes and cougars and rattlesnakes and cactus and yucca, sharp pointed fangs and claws and spines. Late as it was, he could even be caught in one of those early fall blizzards.
Phillips didn’t like the prairie under the best of conditions. Tonight, he hated it.
The sound played in his ears until his fears quieted enough for him to hear it. Strange sound, like the Klaxons on some of those motorcars he had seen in Billings.
Geese! Something in the night had disturbed geese. Must be the Lanning place, only place Phillips knew of that raised geese.
The banker’s hopes soared. He could walk over to the Lanning place and ask for a ride to town. Getting out of this mess would be as simple as … whoops! Couldn’t do that. Couldn’t have a story spreading around town about a banker who gets drunk and winds up naked and lost on the prairie.
Phillips would have to get out of this himself. He took a deep breath of cold night air. Had to get his brain functioning. The Lanning place was south of town. He was facing the sound of the geese and the North Star hung over his left shoulder. All he had to do was go straight ahead until he reached the road and then turn north toward town. He had to hurry though. The Lanning place was a good four miles from town, and that would make it close to dawn by the time he reached Prairie Rose.
His course set, the banker reminded himself that the longest journey begins with the first step. His first landed his foot on a sharp rock. He roared, hopping on his good foot until he lost his balance and pitched headfirst into a patch of greasewood. The thorns scratched furrows down his back wide enough for plowing.
There was some good that came of it. His high, inhuman screech set the geese honking again.
The banker crawled gingerly out of the grease-wood. Too dangerous to wait here and too dangerous to walk. Nothing left to do but crawl. Phillips dropped to all fours, his free hand ranging warily in front of him, muttered curses marking its encounters with prickly pears.
And so he made his way toward the road, white hide shining dully in the starlight, unfettered belly sagging, grunts and snorts enhancing the illusion that something primitive and porcine was loose on the Montana prairie.
Phillips reached the road forty-five minutes later. Gratefully, he stood. His back, unaccustomed to crawling, had been protesting for the past twenty minutes, so he couldn’t stand straight. Still, even walking hunched over, shuffling along the road was better than crawling across the prairie. So on he walked, groaning with the ache of his back and muttering each time his foot found a rock in the road. When he heard the high-pitched Eeeee-eeee from the side of the road, he assumed it was the call of some night bird. Phillips looked at the stars and picked up his pace. Dawn was not long in coming, and he was still four miles from town.
Matilda Harris had arisen early that morning. She always did after one of “those nights.” She had seen it coming. Edwin had been particularly attentive, fetching her a second cup of coffee after dinner and offering to dry the dishes. Not that she would let him, of course. The kitchen was hers, and she didn’t like anyone else bumping around in it. She had tried putting it off, sitting downstairs in the parlor reading the Bible. She thought if Edwin saw her with the good book it might set his mind on mor
e spiritual matters, but it didn’t.
About midnight, he came downstairs, took the Bible away from her, and led her to bed where he had his way with her, grunting and groaning until he got done whatever he felt so compelled to do. She always lay in bed those times, eyes shut, thinking about the week’s menus. Run a boardinghouse and the work was never done, not for the woman anyway.
When he was done and had rolled over and gone to sleep, she slept for a while, but was up at two o’clock. No sense lying in bed if you couldn’t sleep and there was work to do. She was downstairs doing laundry. Took her two days to do laundry, personal things first, already out back hanging on the line, and then the linen from the boardinghouse.
Mrs. Harris yawned: looked like it was going to be a long day.
“Son of a bitch,” whispered the banker Phillips.
The last four miles had taken close to two hours on feet as raw as hamburger. And now the birds were singing, and the stars were dull, disappearing. False dawn was only moments away. Chances were that his clothes were in Millard’s. He could get dressed there and walk back to the boardinghouse. If anyone saw him entering the boardinghouse, he could say he was out for a morning constitutional. No slugabed he, he would tell them, and they would tell the rest of the town that there were no banking hours for the banker Phillips. A smile crossed his face. Leave it to him to turn a problem into an asset.
If his clothes weren’t there, he could slip down the alley between Millard’s and the boardinghouse. Not much chance that townsfolk would be out and about at that time. But Phillips was a cautious man. (He never talked face-to-face about a man or woman if he could talk behind their backs. He never lent money to anybody who really needed it, and he always covered his tracks.) It was perfectly natural for him to play it safe. He stopped by the side of the road and picked two sprays of sagebrush. Fanning them fore and aft, he slipped into town, bound for Millard’s.
The gray light of false dawn covered the land as Phillips reached the saloon. He slipped around to the back door.
Locked! The damn thing was locked. Phillips pounded on the door, trying to strike the balance between being loud enough to be heard by Thomsen inside, and not so loud as to be heard by anyone down the street. Too loud. A dog was barking up the street. Thank heaven, he was too far away to be any immediate problem.
Phillips covered himself with the sagebrush. “Thomsen, open up!” Nothing. Phillips pressed his ear to the door. He thought he could hear a muffled whoofing inside. Must be Thomsen snoring.
No other solution, he must slip back to the boardinghouse and get into his room before anyone else awoke.
Phillips was deep in thought. He had always been proud of his ability to shut himself away from what was going on around him, to concentrate so fully on the matter at hand that nothing could distract him.
He was pure concentration as he walked down the alley, sagebrush fan front and rear, considering the cause of the bizarre events of that night. Thomsen must have slipped him knockout drops. Bass probably hauled him out of town. He vaguely remembered the rocking gait of a horse and the thump when he hit the ground.
Thomsen and Bass would pay for this night. They would rue the day they moved the president of the Prairie Rose Bank to vengeance.
Matilda Harris was taking her underthings off the clothesline behind the boardinghouse. No reason to leave them on the line where everyone could see them. She was a woman from a good family, not like the widow Mrs. Lecker across the alley. She didn’t seem to care who saw her wash. Wanton, she was.
Mrs. Harris didn’t notice the banker Phillips until he popped through the bushes that lined the alley, and then she saw more of him than she ever wanted to.
“Mr. Phillips,” she gasped.
Phillips was so caught up in his plans for revenge, he forgot himself. He reached up to tip his hat.
Mrs. Harris’s scream rattled windows for two blocks around. It brought Mr. Harris out of bed with a thump. It jarred the banker, who hastily covered himself as best he could.
Harris burst through the door of the couple’s apartment. “Hang on, Tillie, I’m coming!”
Mrs. Harris fell in a swoon by the clothesline, and the banker tossed his sagebrush apparel aside and scooted for the back stairs. Mrs. Lecker saw him and waved from across the alley.
Inside, Phillips careened down the hall. He could lock himself in his room and get dressed. By then he would have some kind of explanation.
But when he skidded to a stop at his door and reached for his key, he realized he didn’t have any pockets.
“Son of a bitch,” whispered the banker Phillips.
“Phillips!” roared Edwin Harris, charging up the stairs. “Flaunt yourself at my wife, will you … you … bastard!”
12
Max was ambling into consciousness, prodded along by a stalk of hay poking him between his shoulder blades.
As his senses tuned in for the day, his nose caught a scent that seasoned and then overcame the redolence of the hay. Strong it was, from the cork of a half-full whiskey bottle lying beside him. Max’s stomach shuddered, and he nearly vomited. He couldn’t tolerate whiskey—never had been able to. But when he left Millard’s the night before, buying a bottle seemed to be the thing to do, and as long as he had it, Max felt compelled to drink it. He was not a wasteful man.
But he was paying for his frugality this morning. Another spasm, and Max rolled over and drew himself up to his hands and knees, just in case.
Be a shame to vomit in the hay, so he donned his hat and pulled on his boots. He teetered a bit as he walked over to the ladder leading down from the loft. He started down, swaying when the odor of fresh horse dung caught him full in the face, but he continued down.
The walk to the creek was tentative, Max carrying the bottle by the neck as though it were a snake. He knelt on the edge of the creek, thrust the bottle beneath the surface of the water and pulled the cork. He waited until creek water replaced the whiskey in the bottle and then emptied it, consigning it to the current. The bottle bobbed along. Max wondered how far it would go before lodging against a bank or against a rock, and how long before some cowpoke found it and wondered what kind of a Saturday night had been hidden inside.
Max shed his shirt, shivering as much from the thought of the cold water as from the cool morning air, then stuck his head neck deep into the water.
Max came up sucking air, water coursing over his chest and back, raising gooseflesh. But his eyes were clear, and his mind ready for what lay ahead at the dugout.
Smoke was coming from the chimney. Catherine was awake. Might as well get it over with.
Max’s knock at the door was met with silence. He knocked again, and then poked his head through. Catherine was standing at the stove, sprinkling salt and pepper on sidepork sizzling in a pan. She didn’t bother to look up.
Max took his place at the table. Only one plate and setting. A moment later, Catherine carried the pan to the table and shoveled the sidepork and some fried potatoes onto her plate. She sat down then and began eating.
“Nice morning.”
Catherine didn’t look up.
“Guess I’ll fix me some breakfast.”
Catherine continued eating as though she were sitting alone at the table. Max carried the pan back to the stove, but found only a few remaining potato scraps. He ate those with his fingers. He returned to the table just as Catherine was rising. “Wasn’t very hungry, anyway.”
Catherine walked back to the water warming on the stove, and washed her plate and the two frying pans, drying them with the heat from the stove.
“Thought we might go over to the Leningtons today. Something there I’d like to show you.”
Catherine was slipping on her jacket, and she stepped barefoot out the door on her way to the outhouse, anywhere Max wasn’t.
Shoes! Max had forgotten to bring Catherine her shoes. No wonder she was angry. He trotted over to the barn and pulled the shoes from his saddlebags and then hesitated, de
ciding to hitch up the mare as long as he was already in the barn. Max dawdled at the job for forty-five minutes, about forty more than usual, and when he could stall no longer, he walked back.
Catherine was sitting at the table, sipping a cup of coffee when Max stepped through the door. He walked tentatively to the table. She didn’t look up. Max pulled his chair back to the table and sat down, chin resting on the top of the chair’s back.
“I’m terrible sorry. I didn’t mean to slap you. I’ve never slapped any woman, and if I ever wanted to slap one, you would be the last on the list.”
Max ran his fingers through his hair, muttering something even he couldn’t hear. “This isn’t coming out right. What I mean to say is that I didn’t mean to do it, and I feel lower than a snake’s belly. I took the shoes because I had to go to town, and I couldn’t have you running away. But I meant to give them back as soon as I could.”
Max laid both pairs on the table.
Catherine picked them up with one hand, leaned across to the stove and tossed them in. Max’s eyes widened in disbelief, and he sat transfixed, unable to move until the smell of burning leather tipped him off his chair. Max leaped toward the stove, his chair toppling and skidding across the floor. He opened the firebox and peeked in as though he were peering into the depths of hell. The shoes had curled in the heat, and then as the fresh air fanned the fire, they burst into flame.
“Those are the only shoes you have,” Max said.
Catherine rose, slipped on her jacket and stepped out into a blustery fall day. When Max followed a few minutes later, she was already sitting on the seat of the wagon, bare feet clear of the skirt billowing in the wind.
“I’ve got a pair of dress boots. They wouldn’t fit, but you could wear them until we can get something for you.”
Silence. Silence followed by silence. Max sighed, climbed aboard, and picked up the reins.
If he had been alone, Max would have gone cross country. The trip was rough, but passable. But with Catherine aboard, he chose the road and on they drove, pelted with swirling dust each time a gust of wind passed. There was winter in the air, but more nibble than bite. Still, Catherine’s feet, exposed to the wind, grew stiff and cold. The chill was spreading through her as they approached the Leningtons, and she felt metallically stiff as she climbed off the wagon.
