“I don’t want to upset May,” she says.
“May just slapped my face!”
“She—what did you do?”
“I don’t know. First, I was talkin’ to Lilly. Then I came out the door and May slapped my face, hard.”
“Did Lilly come out first?”
“She did.”
Margaret chuckles.
“What?”
“Can you really be so naïve when it comes to women?”
“It appears I can. What happened?”
She clucks some more and laughs, and says, “Oh, Emmett!”
After she’s done doin’ that for awhile she says, “Well, I’ll ask May. If it’s all right with her, I’ll stay with Lilly a few days.”
“Why would you need to ask May?”
“She might be jealous.”
“Why?”
“She might read something wrong in you coming to me for help, instead of her.”
“She’s got three kids to keep up with at her own place.”
Margaret shakes her head. But smiles.
“What?”
“Your actions are completely logical, but May won’t see it that way.”
I sigh, remove my hat, run my hand through my hair, put my hat back on. “How will May see it?”
“Like I was your first choice, then she pulled your pecker, and you still invited Lilly, her biggest rival, into your saloon. Then you invited me. May thinks you’ve got a thing for me.”
“I’d rather you didn’t speak to May about it.”
“Why not?”
“David Wilson said he’d kill anyone that finds out about him visitin’ Lilly.”
“And yet you told me.”
“That don’t sound good on me, does it? Truth is I figured I could protect you if you’re at the Spur.”
We stand there in the street a minute quietly in a sort of triangle. Margaret, me, and the new horse.
“You should check the saddlebags,” Margaret says.
“This ain’t my horse. A man could get shot goin’ through another man’s things.”
“Could a woman get shot for looking?”
While I’m thinkin’ of a respectful way to say “hell yes!” Margaret walks up to the horse and opens one of the bags.
“Hmm,” she says. “That’s something I’ve never seen in a cowboy’s saddlebag.”
“What?”
She pulls out a thick bar of lye soap.
I frown. “What in tarnation—”
Margaret cocks her head at me. “I take it you don’t approve of keeping clean on the trail.”
“You could clean an army with that much soap. Is there nothin’ else in that bag?”
She steps on tiptoes and peers in.
“Nope. Just the soap.”
“That seems like a complete waste of space.”
“How long since you’ve had a bath, cowboy?” Margaret says.
She has a way with words that ain’t half as blunt as May’s, but I notice they both get to the same point, which is to make me feel like I should’ve been doin’ somethin’ all along that hadn’t bothered me till they spoke about it.
“Now that you mention it, I ain’t had a soap bath since I got captured.”
“Never look a gift horse in the mouth,” she says, smilin’.
She puts the soap back in the saddlebag and moves around the stallion in a wide half-circle, like you’d want to do with any horse you don’t know too well. I watch her face as she peers into the second saddlebag. She looks back at me, then into the bag again, and I notice she’s wearin’ a puzzled look.
“What?” I say.
But Margaret don’t respond. Instead, she walks back to where I’m standin’ in the dirt road.
“What’s the matter?” I say, but Margaret’s too busy to answer. She shocks me by gettin’ down on one knee like she’s about to propose. I look around, embarrassed. If May sees her proposin’ to me I might get worse than slapped.
I might get shot!
But Margaret don’t propose marriage. Instead, she pulls up my right pant leg and touches the lock on my leg iron.
“Hold still,” she says.
Now she’s reachin’ up in the key hole with her fingers.
“It can’t be tripped,” I say. “I’ve tried a thousand times with twigs and rocks and bits of wire. Nothin’ works.”
She pulls up the other pant leg and does the same with that one.
“This is your horse, Emmett.”
“It ain’t my dang horse, Margaret. I never laid eyes on it till just now.”
As if Margaret ain’t shocked me enough today by knowin’ what happened with May, and hearin’ the horse when I didn’t, and gettin’ down on one knee in the middle of the street, she does somethin’ that shocks me more than all the rest put together.
She stands and kisses me flush on the mouth!
23.
I AIN’T BEEN kissed this much since the night of the big storm in Edna, Oklahoma, when I was the only man in town who thought to take shelter in the local whore house. But them weren’t proper women, so I s’pect the record I’m settin’ here in Dodge City’s the one to beat.
Before I get too prideful about it, I need to think up a sensible explanation to give Gentry about all that’s happened between me and these town women. Especially May. Should I tell it the way it happened? I run through it in my mind. Why did I go to May’s house? To find out what she knew about Gentry. Then what happened? I ate dinner. Then May gave me a shave and haircut. Then May got naked and came at me like a cyclone. By the end of the evenin’, I’m naked, hidin’ under her kitchen table. As I think on it in my head, Gentry might wonder why I waited so short to get naked, and so long to find out what May knew about Gentry’s whereabouts.
Margaret seems to know women better than most. I’ll ask her how I should tell it to Gentry. But this don’t seem to be the time to ask Margaret, because she just kissed me. It was just once, and quick, and now a second time, like she means it. Then she backs up and pulls the saddlebags from the horse, and starts walkin’ toward her house.
“Follow me!” she says.
I shuffle behind her, wonderin’ what she’s got in mind. She already said she wouldn’t pull my pecker, so that appears to be off the table.
Margaret don’t have a parlor like May. When you walk in her front door there’s a kitchen on the left and a sleepin’ area on the right. I notice everythin’s tidy and clean.
She points to the bed.
“Sit,” she says.
I do.
“Now lift up your pants.”
“What have you got in mind?” I say.
She looks at me and laughs. Then pulls a large key from one of the saddlebags. I recognize it as the type of key the soldiers used to lock my leg irons. I come up off the bed and stand.
“Sit back down,” she says. “I reckon you won’t be able to do this on your own.”
Just as quickly as I’d got excited, I’m already dragged down in disappointment.
“That’s a new key. It won’t turn these old locks.”
“Just sit down,” she says.
I sit back down on the side of the bed, and she sits on the floor in front of me, and places the key in the lock. To my surprise, it fits. She turns it, and I hear a click. Just one little click, and tears suddenly flood my eyes.
“Oh, Emmett!” she says. “Oh, my word!”
She pulls the leg iron open and off, and my eyes roll up into my head.
I reach out to her and she rises to her knees and hugs me back. We’re swayin’ back and forth, holdin’ the hug. My tears of joy wet the hair on top of her head. After awhile we settle back down so Margaret can unlock the second lock.
But the second lock won’t open.
She tries it several times, then frowns, removes the key, and puts her fingers in the keyhole again.
“This one’s too rusted,” she says.
“Well, I won’t be ungrateful. You saved me days, maybe
weeks, of pain.”
She sits there, starin’ at the cuff.
“On the bright side,” I say, “I’m not just shed of the cuff, but half the chain as well. So my left leg can finally heal while we work on the right one.”
Margaret’s deep in thought. She puts her fingers inside the lock yet again, works them around. When she removes them, she gives them a close inspection. Then she looks at me and smiles.
“What’s it worth to you?” she says.
“What do you mean?”
“What would you give to get this leg iron off?”
Her question throws me.
“Can you get it off?”
“I can.”
“Seriously?”
She nods.
“What do you want?”
“Somethin’ you can’t give just yet. But I’ll accept your promise about it.”
I know what she wants. She wants me to promise if things don’t work out with Gentry, I’ll pick her instead of May. It’s a bold thing for her to do, trade my freedom for a promise to break another woman’s heart. A woman who’d keep me from bein’ free would surely withhold her feminine charms from her husband. Assumin’ we ever got married. But if she’s so mean-spirited as to expect such a promise, I aim to make her say it out loud.
“You can really set me free?”
“I really can.”
“What do I have to promise?”
“You want me to say it out loud?”
“Yes.”
“If you find Gentry and wind up coming back to Dodge…”
“Yes?”
“I want to be mayor.”
“You what?”
“I want to be mayor.”
“Why, you can be mayor right now!”
“Not without a sheriff to enforce my rules.”
I think on what type of town Margaret might run.
“Would you be against drinkin’?”
“Of course not! Drinking attracts men.”
“Whorin’?”
“Same thing.”
“Fightin’? Cussin’?”
“Your job is to control the fighting. And I could care less about the cussing, provided it’s not directed at the innocent.”
I’m confused.
“Then what’s the point of bein’ mayor?”
I want to establish a county school. And a playground. And a town hall, where couples can dance on Friday nights and come together for town socials.”
“Why, them are fine ideas!”
“Thank you.”
“I just can’t imagine you’d withhold my freedom for that kind of promise.”
Margaret gets to her feet while sayin’, “How many towns have you been to in your life, Emmett?”
“I don’t know. Too many to count.”
“How many of those towns had women mayors?”
“Well…not many.”
“Any?”
“Not that I can recall.”
“If this town ever starts to grow again, and you go back to bein’ sheriff, you’re going to face a lot of opposition to having a female mayor.”
“I reckon that’s true.”
“I’ll release you from your chains, but I aim to hold you to your promise.”
“Margaret?”
“Yes?”
“Your ideas are so good I’ll give you my promise even if you can’t get the leg iron off.”
She smiles.
“Thanks, Emmett. You’re an unusually open-minded man.”
She pulls the lye soap from the other saddlebag and flashes a wide grin.
“Do you aim to give me a bath?” I say.
“Would you like me to?”
24.
I NEVER HEARD of soapin’ a lock before, but Margaret’s older and wiser than me, and thank goodness she’s the one I was standin’ with when the horse showed up, because my chains are finally off. Like Scarlett, the roan stallion follows me step by step all the way to Lilly Gee’s house.
“Your chains are gone,” she says.
I nod.
“Then I suppose you’ve come to tell me you’re leaving town?”
“I’m itchin’ to find Gentry, but I’ll stay awhile and see what happens. Maybe Wilson will show.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“Have you spoken to Margaret?”
“I have, and she’s agreed to bunk with you.”
“What time should I come tonight?” she says.
“Around six ought to work.”
She thinks about it a minute, then says, “Thank you, Emmett. That’s real kind of you. I’ll be on time.”
I tip my hat, and head back to the Spur. I walk the stallion in carefully, ’cause Rudy’s inside, and most horses shy away from bears. To my amazement, neither the stallion, Scarlett, nor Rudy seem bothered by the other. When I’m sure they’re comfortable bein’ in the same room together, I head to Tom Collins’s fire pit, where I know Jim will be waitin’.
As I approach, I see he’s got the fire roarin’.
“Have you told May yet?” he says.
“May?”
“Have you told her?”
“About what?”
“Why, Margaret, of course!”
“What about her?”
“Heard she offered you a new horse as a dowry, then got down on one knee and proposed to you right in the middle of town. You said yes, and she kissed you so hard she dragged you to her house and gave you a sound fucking.”
“What? You heard all that?”
“I did.”
“Well it ain’t true.”
He frowns. “Which part?”
“First off, we weren’t in the middle of town. We were out on Front Street, not twenty yards from her place.”
Jim takes off his hat, places it over his heart. “I can’t even imagine how long her field has remained unplowed. Did she cry?”
“Cry?”
“You know, tears of gratitude.”
“No she didn’t cry!”
“Personally, I’d have picked Lilly. I hear she’s a good kisser. Is that true?”
I sigh. “Have you even noticed I’m shed of my leg irons?”
He hadn’t. He looks at my ankles.
“How the hell...?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
Jim looks at the wood stacked around the fire pit.
“Guess we ought to salvage what we can and take it back to your place,” he says.
25.
MY PAIN IS half what it was last night, so either the birch bark tea is workin’, or maybe I’m just so happy to be out of my chains I don’t notice it so much.
I’ve got a decision to make.
Less than two hours ago I invited Lilly Gee and Margaret Stallings to stay at the Spur till David Wilson shows up. At that time I was deep in my chains and figured I’d be stuck in Dodge at least two weeks, maybe more. If one of these horses will take me southwest, I could be at Rose’s ranch in four days. And if they won’t ride me there, I can walk to her place in ten days.
I have no desire to stay in Dodge to wait for that scum-suckin’ David Wilson. Hell, he might decide not to show up for a month! Thinkin’ thoughts of not bein’ with Gentry for a whole month, while knowin’ I’m only 400 miles away, is pure agony. I could ask Jim to stay at the Spur and keep an eye on Lilly and Margaret till I get back with Gentry, and no one would blame me.
Except that Jim ain’t a shooter.
If Wilson does happen to show up with his men, the result will be hard to live with.
I sigh.
The only right thing to do is stay here and protect Lilly Gee. I was sheriff of Dodge when I got captured, and reckon I’m sheriff, still.
I spend the rest of the afternoon haulin’ what wood I can carry to the Spur with my sore ribs and back. Jim is carryin’ three times my load without complaint, and I’m beholdin’ to him. Otherwise, I wouldn’t allow him
to make the comments he does.
“How would a man choose between Gentry and Lilly?” he says, as we work. “On the one hand, Gentry’s prettier. On the other, Lilly’s a proper woman, and ain’t been with but one man, so her time ’tween the sheets is more special. On the one hand, Gentry’s a whore, so her time ’tween the sheets is the best money can buy. On the other hand, Lilly’d be a great mother. On the other hand, Gentry’d be a great wife. On the—wait. How many hands is that?”
“You’re up to five hands already, and ain’t said a damn thing. They’re different women, and it don’t matter which a man would choose, ’cause I already made my choice, and so did you.”
“True,” Jim says, “but here’s the question I always wondered.”
“What’s that?” I say, bein’ cordial to a vulgar man who’s doin’ the work of three in this God-awful heat.
Jim says, “Do you think during these last years Lilly’s husband was able to give her a steady poking?
I frown and decide not to comment for fear I’ll lose my temper. But no sooner had I not spoken than Jim says, “Which one would you rather fuck after a long, dormant spell: a young filly like Lilly, or a seasoned mare like May?”
“This type a’ talk don’t interest me,” I say, with an even-tempered voice. “Nor does it help you.”
“Well,” he says, “On the one hand, Lilly ain’t got the experience to properly please a man. On the other, her skin is tight, and milky-white, and—”
And it goes on like that all afternoon, till we haul the last load of wood back to the Spur. While we’re stackin’ it in the center of the saloon, Margaret shows up with her carpetbag and Jim says, “Whoa, what’s this?”
“Margaret’s stayin’ here a few days with me and Lilly.”
“She’s what?”
“I’m surprised you don’t already have an opinion on it.”
Jim grins. “I reckon I’ll form one soon as May finds out.”
26.
SIX TURNS INTO seven, and Jim comes back with a bottle of rye that’s got maybe two shots left in it.
Lilly ain’t showed up yet, so I sit and have a pull with him. Margaret’s in the kitchen, fryin’ pork fat for the green beans she brought from her garden.