Passin' Through (1985) (25 page)

She looked right at me then, and she said, "I don't want you to go."

No woman ever said that to me before.

Chapter
Twenty Three

Well, I was scared. Looking across the table I said, "Ma'am, I'd like to stay but I'd be a nuisance. I never had much truck with womenfolks. I'm just a driftin' man, draggin' his spurs ever' which way. I don't know much but horses, cattle, an' country rock."

She put her hand over mine. "Mr. Passin', I want you to stay. I don't want you to leave, ever."

For a moment there I couldn't speak. Who was I to deserve the likes of her?

"Well," I said, "there's a lot of high- up hills right close around here."

"And when you want to go," she said, "if you want, I'll go with you."

That was the way it was, and when I'd taken her back to the hotel I went to the store and bought myself a set of hand-me- downs. I mean, I bought a suit right off the shelf. There was no tailor in town but I'd never had a tailored suit anyway. Fact is, Fd never had a suit before, not since Pa bought me one when I was knee-high, and that was for goin' to church an' such.

We'd talked it out, and we'd be married right there in Parrott City and ride back to the ranch together.

When I came back on the street with that package under my left arm, who should be standing there but Matty. She stood there, her hair blowing a little in the wind, all alone.

"Matty," I said, walking over to her, "what are you going to do now?"

"Mrs. Hollyrood was arrested."

"I know."

"She intended to poison you. I didn't want that to happen. You're a good man."

"Have you got any money, Matty? Remember, we're friends."

"I have nothing. They took it all, although there wasn't much."

Aside from my walking-around money I still had twelve hundred dollars. Fd bought an expensive suit, paid fifteen dollars for it. Reaching down in my jeans, I took out a hundred dollars.

"I can't take that."

"We're friends, Matty. Go someplace, get a fresh start. You'll do all right. Just believe in yourself."

She took the money. "Thank you, Mr. Passin'. I'll not forget this."

"Don't worry about it."

She turned away. "Matty?" I said. She looked around. "What's your other name? Matty what?"

"Higgins," she said, then after a pause, "I'm a Clinch Mountain Higgins."

She walked away down the street toward the stage station and I watched her go. She was a truly beautiful woman.

At the hotel I switched into that new suit, and had me a struggle with the necktie. Reminded me of a cowboy I'd heard of. The first time they put a tie on his neck he didn't move for two days. Thought he was tied to a hitchin' post.

The Dutchman had rounded up a sky pilot and some folks gathered around to be at the wedding. With my collar all cinched up like that I hadn't been so strangled since they tried to hang me that time.

That sky pilot brought the Good Book with him and we stood up whilst he spoke the words, and simple as that, I was a married man with a beautiful wife, so while she talked with womenfolks, the Dutchman and me went out to saddle our horses.

That blue roan was standing ready and I saddled my other horse for Janet. I'd finished cinching up and walked around the horse when the Dutchman spoke.

"Mr. Passin'? Watch it."

Well, I looked around, and across the street stood Charles Pelham Clinton in a white suit and a panama hat and he was standing there looking across at me.

"I've been looking for you, Mr. Passin'," he said quietly. "I've been looking and waiting."

"I'm here," I said.

"You surprised me," he said, "and I didn't expect it of you. You seem to have a gift for survival."

Now Charles Pelham Clinton, whose brother I'd killed and whose plans I'd helped to upset, had not come to talk about politics or the weather, nor even to congratulate me on my wedding. But maybe he did.

"You're a bridegroom, I hear," Clinton said, "and you married Janet Le Caudy, of all people." "I did."

"Too bad," he said, "for such a young wife to become a widow."

"It would be," I replied.

"But," he said, "I must congratulate you. In fact I must take off my hat to you." He lifted his hand to his hat and then his hand started down and I shot him dead.

The Dutchman started forward. "You shot him! You -"

"Look in his hand," I said.

Clinton lay sprawled, one hand outstretched, one almost under him. In the palm of his right hand was a double- barreled .44 derringer.