by Ed Gorman
No response.
“Frank?”
Still nothing.
A couple walked by laughing. Sarah wanted to slap the happiness from their faces. Their happiness seemed vulgar to her.
She tried one more time. “Frank?”
She tried the doorknob. Unlocked. She turned it sixty degrees and went inside.
He was on the bed, all his clothes on. His back was to her. A letter lay on the foot of the bed. The room was in shadow and smelled of dust.
“Are you all right, Frank?”
Then she saw the whiskey bottle on the stand next to the bed.
She felt great excitement. If he was drinking, that meant he was not going to go through with the fight after all. Frank never drank before a gunfight. Ever.
She went over and sat down on the bed. She put her hand on his back and began to rub the long muscles over his shoulder blades. The familiar smells of his hair and his body came to her, and she felt almost as if she would capsize. She’d been so long without him, and now here they were on a bed together.
“Frank,” she said, and leaned forward to kiss him.
He turned over and looked at her finally. “Good old Sarah,” he said. “Why the hell don’t you just leave me alone?”
He’d had enough drink now to make him mean.
“I just wanted to make sure you were all right,” she said.
“Good old Sarah,” he repeated, putting as much emphasis on her name as he could.
“I’m glad you’re not going to fight him.”
He sat up and said, “What the hell are you talking about?”
She nodded toward the whiskey. ‘The bottle. You never drink before a fight.”
He threw his legs off the bed, stood up, and grabbed the bottle. “Well, this one time I am. If it’s any of your business, I mean.”
“But Frank—”
“What the hell are you doing here, Sarah?”
“I just wanted to convince you to—” But she was hurt and flustered now and couldn’t talk.
He came around the bed and took her arm so hard in his fingers that pain shot all the way down her side.
He dragged her to the door and said, “Get the hell out of here, Sarah. Right now.”
“But, Frank—”
“You heard me, Sarah. Out.”
“But, Frank, I’ve given you most of my life. It’s not fair. It’s—”
The knock came. Frank pushed her out of the way and opened the door. Guild stood there.
“I came to get Sarah.”
“Fine. I’m glad. I don’t want her bothering me anymore.”
Guild looked at Sarah. He said softly, “C’mon, Sarah. Let’s go.”
“Frank—” she started to say. But then stopped.
Guild said again, “C’mon, Sarah. Let’s go.”
* * *
The train smelled of heat and oil and steam. Porters were loading baggage, and passengers were saying their goodbyes.
Guild stood by the third car with Sarah. “Say hello to Ellen for me.
Sarah smiled wearily. “You two always got along, didn’t you?”
“She’s a fine woman.”
“Thanks for coming up to Frank’s room and getting me.”
“Sure.”
“I guess he really doesn’t love me anymore, does he?”
She was trying hard to be brave about it.
“The summers are good in Maine. The ocean especially,” Guild said.
“That will be nice, won’t it?” she said. “The ocean, I mean?”
She looked old and frail and worn to the nub. Whatever dignity there was in her, and sometimes there was considerable dignity, seemed to have been replaced by sadness now.
Sarah glanced around the platform. “I guess I’ll board.”
“It won’t be pulling out for another ten minutes. I’ll be glad to wait.”
“No,” she said, leaning down and taking her bag. “I’ll just go get a seat now. Maybe that way I can sit next to the window. You know how much I like to watch the scenery.”
She started crying then, and he wasn’t sure why. Probably lots of reasons really. He took her to him and held her with a great abiding reverence for all the things they’d meant to each other in their long confusing lives, from the days when he’d teased her as an eight-year-old, to the snowy nights when they’d snuggled for warmth in their marriage bed, to this day and this place and the strange and troubled woman she’d become since leaving him for Frank, the strange and troubled woman he nonetheless still loved.
“If I knew where you’d be, I’d write you a letter,” she said, trying to stop her tears now.
“How about if I write you?”
“Ooh, that would be wonderful, Leo. Really.”
He smiled. ‘Then I’ll do it, Sarah. I promise.”
Then she was on the train, at first lost in the white waving steam, and then reappearing, a small sweet face tucked into the corner of a window, a small hand waving goodbye.
Guild, numb, left the depot and went to get himself a drink.
Chapter Sixteen
Sarah watched Guild until he disappeared from the depot. Again, she was struck by how old he seemed these days; weary, really. He seemed to shamble instead of walk.
She sat there a long moment, letting the noises of the Pullman car fill her—the two bratty children racing up and down the aisle up front; the general din of conversation, mostly female; the clanking of another car being coupled on to the back; and an old man sitting behind her snoring wetly. Apparently he was deaf; none of the noise seemed to bother him.
The portly conductor came down the aisle asking for tickets. He had a small silver paper punch that he used with a great deal of self-satisfaction.
She handed him the ticket. Obviously taken with her prettiness, he said, “You have a nice trip for yourself, ma’am.”
She mustered her best social smile. “I will. And thank you.”
He touched the brim of his black kepi-style cap and strutted on down the aisle to the next seat.
She lay back and closed her eyes.
She tried to imagine Maine. She’d only been there once—in her early twenties, she’d been—and she thought of it now as miles of raw, beautiful coastline and dark, brambly woods. It would be good to see her sister Ellen, the resident optimist of the family. If anybody could help put Sarah’s life back together, it would be Ellen.
The train jerked forward, preparatory to leaving the depot.
Up front, the two brats cried out joyously. They were at the age when all trips were grand adventures.
She wished she could be like them, the children. Live only in the present. Think only of Maine and Ellen. There might even be a new man there to meet.
The conductor was leaning out of the car, shouting “Board!” to the last stragglers as they hurried across the platform burdened down with luggage.
All at once, Sarah bolted. She jumped up from her seat, grabbed her luggage, and moved out into the aisle. She’d taken no more than four steps when she ran into the conductor’s considerable bulk.
“Ma’am, the train’s about to leave.”
“I know.”
“Shouldn’t you sit down?”
“I’ve decided—not to go.”
“Oh?” She could see in his eyes that he was now classifying her as something other than a pretty older woman. She had become a low-grade nuisance.
“He’s gathering steam,” the conductor said. “I can’t have him stop now.”
“I know.”
Beneath her, the train rumbled forward again.
“Please let me by,” she said. “Please.”
Shaking his head, looking for sympathy from the onlookers who were now also regarding her as a nuisance, he pulled himself back so she could squeeze past his bulk.
“Thank you,” she said, and hurried forward, banging her luggage against his knee as she passed him.
By the time she reached the Pullman’s door, the train was
actually moving—she felt the boxy car start to sway side to side. Out the window, the depot was beginning to retreat.
She moved down to the bottom step and jumped, landing comically on the depot platform. Sprawled over her luggage, she pushed herself awkwardly to her feet. Two men rushed to help her up.
“You took a real chance there, ma’am,” one of the men said, obviously wanting to scold her, as if she were a disobedient child. “That was a foolish thing to do.”
“I know,” she said, as she gained her feet again. “But then I’m a foolish sort of person.”
She picked up her luggage and walked into the depot.
The clerk at the general store was waiting on an old man looking for an elixir for his rheumatism. No matter what bottle the clerk showed him, the old man shook his head, his snowy white hair flying out from his long, narrow skull. “T’ain’t it, Cletus, t’aint it at all.”
So Cletus would climb up the stepladder and tug down another dusty bottle of another potent elixir and show it to the old man. The old man would promptly shake his head again.
She wondered where Cletus found all his patience.
Finally, seeming to run out of patience, Cletus said, “Henry.”
“Yes?”
“You know how many bottles I’ve showed you?”
“How many?”
“Sixteen.”
“I’ll be dagged.”
“Henry?”
“What?”
I ain’t going to show you no more.”
“You ain’t?”
“Nope. Now you go find your wife and bring her back.”
“How come?”
“Cause she’ll know what you’re looking for.”
“She will?”
Cletus sighed. “She’s across the street at Lyman’s, looking at hats. Now you go get her.”
“All right, Cletus. If you say so.”
Cletus walked around the counter, took Henry by the elbow, and walked him toward the front door. From there he pointed across the street.
“Over at Lyman’s,” he said again. He half shouted.
“Much obliged, Cletus.”
And with that, the old man doddered out.
“It’s a dam shame,” Cletus said, coming back around the counter. “Henry ain’t been the same since he turned 95.” He seemed to look at her for the first time, recognizing her. “Oh,” he said.
“You told the sheriff about the gun I bought.”
“Had to, ma’am. Sheriff Carter wants me to tell him about every gun I sell. And right away, too, or he gets dam mad.”
“I need another gun.”
“Ma’am?”
“I need another one.”
He hesitated and then said, “There was almost some trouble. With Ben Rittenauer, I mean.”
She said nothing, just stared at him.
“I can’t do it, ma’am.”
She put twenty-five dollars down on the counter.
“Oh, ma’am.”
“You’re tempted, aren’t you?”
“Ma’am. I’m just a clerk here. I don’t own this store and I sure don’t see that kind of money. Not very often, anyway.”
She put more money on the counter.
“Oh, ma’am,” he said.
“You have kids?”
“Three of them.”
“Bet you don’t often get to buy them gifts.”
“Not often. But please don’t tempt me this way.”
“You have debts?”
“Everybody has debts, ma’am.”
“Bet it would be nice to pay on a couple of them with money like this.”
“Oh, ma’am, please don’t—”
She put down a few more dollars.
“There’s no reason anybody ever has to know,” she said.
He swallowed hard. “What’re you plannin’ to do with the gun?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
He looked down at the money.
“Wouldn’t your wife be surprised?” Sarah said.
He looked up at her, looking as if he were about to cry.
“And wouldn’t she be grateful, seeing you bring in extra money like this?”
He put out a tentative hand, like a child putting his fingers dangerously close to a fire, and said, “She sure would be grateful, ma’am. She sure would.”
Hollister picked them up in front of Ben Rittenauer’s hotel in a wagon with three broad seats behind him beneath a surrey roof.
Beth and Ben appeared first. The small crowd that had gathered in front of the hotel remarked on how pretty she looked. Ben looked nothing special—neither swaggering nor afraid. He helped his lady up into the wagon and then sat down himself, both behind Hollister. They didn’t say anything, just sat there staring straight ahead.
Frank Evans was five minutes late. He wore a clean white shirt and custom-tailored trousers. His holster, extra-long and fancy, was tied down with a showy piece of rawhide. He walked over to the wagon and climbed up beside Hollister. Somebody in the crowd shouted, “Only one of you boys’re cornin’ back. You realize that?”
Nobody in the wagon seemed to hear.
The wagon pulled out. The horse in the traces had left enough dung to keep the hungry flies busy till dawn.
Guild tried to play pinochle. He went three hands before he realized it was hopeless. Cards required concentration, especially pinochle, and he couldn’t concentrate. He kept thinking about Sarah on the train and Rittenauer and Evans out at the Adair ranch. Poor men shouldn’t die for the amusement of rich men.
He excused himself from the card table and went back to the bar. Two men his age were telling Civil War stories. They were Union men and without apologies for it. The stories started out reasonable enough but soon became whoppers. Guild hated whoppers. There wasn’t any tension in them; in whoppers, anything could happen and usually did.
After two sudsy beers, he had a whiskey. Guild rarely had whiskey.
At the livery stable, she bought a bay. The black man who sold it to her brought her out back, helped her up on the animal, and then instructed her on the fastest way to reach the Adair spread from there.
She left town just as the air began to turn muzzy with dusk. The hooves of her mount were loud in the suppertime silence.
Chapter Seventeen
Promptly at six, Cletus closed the store, pulling down the front blinds, double-checking the safe, and setting up the new red licorice display for the kids tomorrow. He took his usual route out the back door to the alley.
If you walked five sandy blocks straight down the alley, you’d reach the backyard of Cletus’ house.
Tonight, walking, he whistled.
Usually at day’s end he was so fatigued, he thought of nothing except supper and sitting in the parlor in his stocking feet and having his youngest girl rub his toes. How she loved to do that, sweet child that she was.
But tonight Cletus looked and sounded ten years younger. It was the money in his pocket, of course. His wife was really going to be surprised. He’d already made up his mind that he wasn’t going to tell her where it came from. He’d lie and say that Mr. Sanford, the owner of the store, had given him the money as a bonus, unlikely a tale as it was.
So he whistled. When he saw a sweet collie, he stopped to pet her. And when he saw a woman taking down white bedsheets from her clothesline, he waved.
He was half a block away from home when he stopped whistling.
A single, simple thought had just hit him: I’m not a lucky man. I’ve been blessed with a true-blue wife and three wonderful children, but I have not been blessed with luck. I’m not strong; I’m not handsome; I’m not successful. And I will get caught. Somehow, Sheriff Carter will find out what I’ve done and he’ll come after me. Then, Lord, I’ll be looking for a new job, one where I have no responsibility with firearms, and my wife will be frying shit sandwiches because that’ll be the only thing to eat.
He turned sharply around in the sandy alley and went back to the d
owntown area. The red sun was sinking just on the sharp black edge of a garage roof.
“Sheriff.”
“Howdy, Cletus.”
“Sheriff, you have a minute?”
“I was just going over to the café for some supper. Care to walk along?”
Bolder than he’d ever been, Cletus closed the door behind him, shutting the two men inside the sheriff’s office.
The sheriff looked amused with Cletus’ new boldness. ‘This must be important.”
“It is.”
“Then go ahead.”
“Sheriff, I’ve made a mistake.”
“All right.”
“A bad one.”
“I see.”
“I accepted a bribe.”
Sheriff Carter smiled. “No offense, Cletus, but who the hell’d want to bribe you?”
“That woman.”
“What woman?”
“The one who almost shot Ben Rittenauer this afternoon.”
“Just what the hell are you trying to tell me, anyway?” For the first time, the sheriff looked interested in all this. Now, instead of sitting back, he was hunched forward, elbows on his desk.
“I sold her another gun.”
“What?”
“Yes. And I’m sorry.”
“Why in God’s name would you do something like that?”
“Because I was greedy.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“I knew you’d get mad and I’m sorry.”
“When did this happen?”
“About forty-five minutes ago.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“Like I said, I’m sorry.”
The sheriff stood up. “You may just have gotten a man killed tonight, Cletus.”
“I realize that.”
“That was a dumb goddamn thing to do.”
“That’s why I came over here. To tell you.”
Sheriff Carter put on his fancy hat and started for the door. “You say she bribed you?”
“Yessir.”
“How much?”
Cletus told him.
“What’re you going to do with it?” the sheriff asked.
Cletus took the bills from his pocket and offered them to the sheriff. “Hand it over.”
The lawman looked at the money in Cletus’ hand. “I imagine your wife and kids could use that, couldn’t they?”
“Yessir.”
“Then you keep it and take it home.”
