The Pistoleer (50 page)

E
arly that summer, my husband made a deal with some people in El Paso to move a herd of cattle down from New Mexico. Two of those people, he said, were George Scarborough and John Selman. He didn’t mention Jeff Milton—maybe because Jeff wasn’t in it, maybe because Martin didn’t know he was. Anyhow, they told Martin they had a buyer out at Van Horn all ready to take the cows off their hands at a real nice profit. They were stealing the herd, of course—that’s why they contracted Martin to move it for them. He had a reputation for expertise in that regard. I once heard him describe his profession as the low-overhead approach to the beef business.

I
married Martin because I was young and bored and didn’t know much except that I wanted some excitement in my life. My brothers taught me to ride and shoot when I was still in pigtails, and I always envied them their freedom to roam and take their pleasure where they found it. I won’t be stupidly coy and deny that I’d known men before Martin, but they were mostly dullards of the sort to be found by the bushels in small towns—clerks and druggists and drummers. Men with stiff collars and soft hands and eyes as oily as their hair. Now and then I’d fool with a farmboy. Their muscles were hard, but I wanted no part of their sweat-and-dirt futures. I’d never known a truly exciting man until I met Martin. He took me away to the bright lights and loud music and fast smoky pleasures of Galveston and San Antone. He taught me the mean comforts of whiskey, and many of men’s secret sexual delights. Before long, however, I found out he was not the man I thought he was. I began to suspect that he was afraid of losing me, and one dark night, when he whispered that I was the only one he’d ever trusted, I knew I was right. I realized how much stronger than him I was, and I couldn’t help but hate him a little for disappointing me so bad.

S
carborough gave Martin half his fee before he left for New Mexico and promised to pay the rest on delivery of the herd to a small ranch just east of El Paso. Martin took Vic Queen, Hector O’Keefe, and Tom Finnessy with him and went up to Little Texas to get the cows. Two weeks later he got back to our rented house in town and woke me in the middle of the night, still smelling of dust and horse sweat. He said they’d run into some hard luck on the way back with the herd. They were attacked by rustlers just a few miles north of the Texas border and had the cows stolen from them. “We were lucky to get out of it alive,” he said, and I heard the lie in his voice. That’s the trouble with a liar: he even lies to the people he doesn’t have to. He undressed in the dark, saying he was worried because he didn’t think Scarborough and the others would believe the herd had been rustled. “Guys like them,” he said as he got in bed and ran his hand over my breasts and down my belly, “think the whole world’s as crooked as they are.” Both of us laughed, only he didn’t know we were laughing at different things.

The next day he telephoned Scarborough and set up a meeting with him and Selman in Juárez across the river. Before leaving he gave me an envelope full of money for safekeeping. I saw him put another thick envelope in the inside pocket of his coat. Then he kissed me and left. As soon as he was gone I counted the money. It was more than four thousand dollars. I knew he was in over his head trying to cheat men like them.

T
hat evening Hector O’Keefe came to me from Juárez with a message from Martin. He was one of Martin’s best friends. He’d had most of his nose bitten off in a fight when he was a boy, and I could never look on him without a little shudder of repugnance. The damn fool would actually make eyes at me. He told me Scarborough and Selman hadn’t bought the story about cattle rustlers. They accused Martin of selling the herd himself and pocketing the money, and they had demanded their share of the take. Martin swore to them he was telling the truth and said the best he could do was return what was left of the advance payment they had given him, though he’d had to use most of it to pay his hands and buy supplies. The meeting broke up in a flare of bad tempers. Scarborough said he’d arrest Martin on any one of several rustling warrants if he crossed back into El Paso before giving them their money. Selman said he’d shoot him on sight and charge him with resisting arrest afterward. Martin wanted me to see a lawyer first thing in the morning and find out what legal protection he could count on if he came back to town. If nothing could be done, I was to pack our bags and join him in Mexico.

I
’d read all about him in the newspapers, of course—from all the early editorial hoorah about what a fine model of upstanding citizenship he’d made of himself during all those years in prison, to the recent story accusing him of holding up a card game in the Gem Saloon. And I’d heard the talk going around—that he hadn’t done much business as a lawyer in the two months he’d been in town; that he was drinking like a drowning man every night; that he sometimes didn’t stagger home till dawn, mumbling to himself. And that damn near every man in town was scared to death of him.

I told myself that if any lawyer could understand Martin’s situation it had to be him. But that was only what I told myself. The truth was, I wanted to see him up-close. I wanted to know if he’d ever really been what they said he’d been. I was curious about him, what else can I say? Oh, hell—I guess I had the yens for him before I ever met him, it’s simple as that.

He damn sure got some yens of his own when I showed up at his office next day and he took a good look at me. But he knew how to play the gentleman. He showed me to a chair facing his desk and prepared cups of coffee for us from a tray he’d had brought up from the cafe next door. He wore an impeccable black suit and smelled freshly barbered. It was fascinating to watch those large scarred hands stirring a teaspoon, jotting an occasional note with a fountain pen, or stroking his mustaches as I told him about Martin’s predicament. All the while I was talking, his gray eyes drifted over me like smoke. I never wore a corset. I knew how interesting a man could find the contours of my shirtwaist and the way my skirt clung to my lap. I’d been getting yearning looks from men from the time I was twelve. But there was something more than that in his eyes, something beyond just wanting to touch me. At first I thought it might be loneliness, but I came to find out it wasn’t that, not exactly, not in the way most people mean it, anyhow. I can’t say what it was, only that it was always there, right from the start of—what shall I call it? our
liaison
—from the start of our liaison till the time I last saw him, less than two months later.

He listened to me tell about Martin’s problem without once interrupting me. I hadn’t meant to tell him
everything
—not about the money Martin left with me, for instance, or the envelope he’d put in his coat—but I did. Every time I stopped talking, he’d stare at me like he could see right
into
me, and I’d start right up again, until finally I’d told him all of it.

He said he could likely get a judge to write up some kind of protective order, but added that such legal restraint would really be useless. “Legalities don’t mean much to the men he’s dealing with,” he said. “They
are
the law. If they believe he has money which belongs to them, they’ll get it from him or know the reason why.”

I asked him what should I do. That depends, he said. On what, I said. On how much you love your husband, he said. For a minute we just stared at each other. I swear I could smell the smoke in his eyes. “Well,” I finally said, “sometimes I’m just not sure. “He smiled and said, “I admire your candor, Mrs. McRose.” I smiled back and said, “Yes, and that’s not the only thing about me you’ve been admiring, Mr. Hardin.”

My heart jumped in my throat as he came around the desk, took me by the wrists, and pulled me to the couch. He pushed me on my back and yanked up my skirt. Up went my legs, off went my underclothes, down went his trousers. His hardness slipped into me so smooth and deep and fine I didn’t even know I was howling with pleasure till his hand went over my mouth. “
Damn,
woman,” he said between grunts, “they’ll think it’s murder going on up here!” I laughed and came at the same time—which was a first for me.

A few minutes later—our breathing still ragged, our faces hot, our bodies cramped and sweaty and crushed together on that narrow couch—we grinned at each other and kissed for the first time.

*    *    *

T
he problem, Wesley said, was that Scarborough and Selman might find out I was holding some of the money.

“Would they harm
me?
” I asked—as if I didn’t know. He looked up at me and said, “Only as much as they have to in order to get their money.”

It was the afternoon of the same day, and we were naked in his bed in the Herndon Lodging House. He was lying on his back, his head and shoulders propped up by a pillow, and I was astraddle him, slowly working my hips and feeling him deep inside me. An empty bourbon bottle glinted on the floor in the sunlight slanting through the window, and a half-full bottle stood beside the bed. On the little writing table by the window was the stacked manuscript of his book, his life story. He’d been writing on it every day, he told me, and was close to finishing.

We’d been at it all day—both the humping and the drinking—and neither of us had had nearly enough. “What should we do,” I asked him, and rolled my hips wickedly. He growled with pleasure and plucked at my nipples. “That depends,” he said, “on how much you love your husband.” We both laughed out loud. And at the same thing.

T
he next morning Vic Queen showed up on my front porch and said Martin wanted me to go to Juárez right away. I thanked him for the message and started to close the door, but he blocked it with his boot. “He means
right now,
” he said.

I had a hangover like a railroad spike in my skull and was in no mood for an argument. I excused myself for a moment and left him standing in the foyer while I went to the bedroom and got the loaded Remington revolver I kept under my pillow. I went back to the front room with the gun behind me, then brought it around and aimed it with both hands squarely in Vic Queen’s face. “Get out of my house, you son of a bitch!” I said. “And
I
mean right now!”

He raised his hands to his shoulders and backed out onto the porch. He said, “Marty’s gonna be damn mad, Beulah.” I slammed the door shut and watched him through the window as he stomped off down the street toward the river.

When I saw Wes in his room later in the day and told him what had happened, he said not to worry, that he’d had a talk with George Scarborough that morning and Martin wouldn’t be a problem much longer. He poured two drinks and handed me one. “Hair of the mangy mutt,” he said, and we touched glasses and drank.

I had a pretty good idea what he meant about Martin, but I figured it was best not to ask too many questions. What you don’t know can’t implicate you as an accomplice. The whiskey sparked in my brain and bloomed in my belly like a little fire flower. Wes pulled me to him, ran his hands over me from neck to hipbone, and bit my lower lip. Then our clothes were sailing through the room and we were laughing and grabbing at each other and falling into bed in a naked tangle of arms and legs and tongues.

T
hey shot Martin dead on our side of the Mexican Central railroad bridge. Milton and Scarborough and a Ranger named Frank McMahon. Milton told the newspapers Martin was wanted for cattle rustling and had been hiding out in Mexico. He said he’d gotten a tip that Martin and some of his “gang” would be crossing into El Paso on the night of June 19 to commit a robbery, and he had set a trap for him.

“The fugitive resisted our attempts to arrest him peaceably,” Milton said. “We were forced to defend ourselves when he drew his weapon and opened fire.”

Yeah sure. Wes looked at the newspaper over my shoulder and said, “Damn shame. Like the man says, crime does not pay.” I looked up and said, “Not if you’re dead, it doesn’t.”

We were the only two at Martin’s funeral. A few days later I received a package with Martin’s effects. It contained his clothes, his gunbelt and empty holster, his boots, and an envelope with thirteen dollars. By then I’d moved in with Wes in the Herndon House, and everybody knew I was his woman.

O
ne night we fucked on a sandbar in the river under a bright half-moon. We were well away from town and both banks were covered with heavy brush. “You think somebody’s peeking at us?” I whispered. The idea of it was exciting. He chuckled and said, “Sure do.” I sat up and looked all around. The moonlight blazed on my tits and belly. “Who? Where?” I said. “God,” he said, “everywhere.” Now
I
had to laugh. I hugged him tight and rolled on top of him. “I
heard
you were a preacher’s son!” I said. “Tell me, what’s Lord Jesus think about us carrying on like this?” He nuzzled his face between my tits and said, “He thinks it’s real nice we follow the Golden Rule with each other, you and me.”

A couple of times a week we’d check into a fancy Juárez hotel room with a bathtub large enough to hold the both of us. We’d soap each other to a thick creamy lather and just run our hands over our slippery flesh till we couldn’t stand it anymore. We found all sorts of ways to do it in tubs, on tables, in hacks, on chairs—standing with him behind me at our wide-open window with all our clothes on and the back of my dress hiked up to accommodate our humping while the lights of the city blazed down below.

We did everything we took a mind to. I’d tickle his balls with my tongue. I’d wrap his cock in my hair and caress him through it like a glove. I’d roll ice chips in my mouth and then lick him like a stick of candy. He’d pour wine on my cunny and press his face to it and slurp it up. He’d look up at me from between my thighs and grin and tell me the little man in the boat was standing practically on tiptoe. “I
know,
” I’d say through my teeth, furious for him to get back at it. He’d tease my nipples to stones with a flamingo feather off my hat, then turn me over and play the feather along the crease of my ass and twirl it lightly in the tiny hairs down there. For every trick I taught him, he taught me two.