Devils Unto Dust(8)

I walk beneath the desert sun

I walk beneath the moon

I’m looking for my one true love

I hope I find her soon.

I’ll look until I die of thirst

Until I fall from grace

I’ll look for my one true love

Till I forget her face.

It’s an old song, and the tune is cheery if the words are not. At the very least it gets my mind off this morning, my feet crunching along the road to the beat. When my throat gets too dry, I switch back to humming and try to swallow some moisture back into my mouth.

I pass what remains of the school, empty since our teacher left and no one bothered to take her place, then a long-shuttered mercantile shop, and then I’m almost there. McNab’s General Store is still open, though there’s nobody in it but McNab himself. He’s a stubborn one, there behind the counter, a look of grim determination on his face. Most folks get their food from the Homestead now, rather than the store; no one wants to spend real money, not when they can trade.

The path swings back to the left, and now the two rows of shops that make up Main Street come into view. In between the empty buildings are the shops that are still in service, the bootmaker’s and the boardinghouse, the pharmacy and the firearms store. There’s always a need for guns and medicine, especially out here. The storefronts are plain and sandblasted, the paint faded from signs and the windows dusty, but they have wide wooden banquettes to walk along and a welcome overhang to keep off the sun. I step onto the porch of the pharmacy, both to catch my breath and prepare myself, leaning against one of the beams that support the overhang.

My destination is at the end of Main Street, where a large, square, two-story building sits between the rows of shops. The Homestead started out as the courthouse, but now it serves as a trading post and a saloon, and the place where the shake hunters gather. The second story is a brothel, though it’s not advertised as such. I hate the Homestead; I hate the smell of the whiskey and the drunken laughs, I hate the men who populate it, but my need is stronger than my hate today. I square my shoulders and push away from the beam and run face-first into two hunters.





6.


I jump back, rubbing my chin where it glanced off something metal and cursing myself for being so addle-headed as to not see where I’m going.

“Sorry,” I mutter, and try to force my way past them.

“Not so fast,” the man on the right says, moving to block me. “Where you off to in such a hurry, little sister?”

He has deep-set eyes and a squashed nose. I don’t know him, but the man next to him is called Vasquez, a regular at the Homestead.

“You know damn well where I’m going,” I say crossly. “So let me get on with it.”

“What you got in the bag?” Vasquez asks, nodding at my sack.

“Nothing worth troubling yourself about.”

“We’ll be the judge of that,” the stranger says. “Hand it over.”

I clutch the sack tighter and wonder if I can reach my gun before they get theirs, and if a bag of biscuits is worth killing over.

“Don’t be stupid, girl,” Vasquez says, his hand on his pistol. “Do what Grady says.”

I clench my jaw hard, but relax my grip on the bag, glad I kept my money tucked away. The stranger, Grady I guess, closes in and lifts it from my shoulder while I glare at him; at least I can refuse to hand it over, a small and meaningless victory.

He opens the bag and digs his hand in, and to satisfy my anger I picture how he’ll look when the shakes tear his arms off. Bloody, I reckon.

“What the hell is this?” he asks, holding up a fistful of chimes.

I don’t answer, and he lets them fall to the ground, where they land with a jangle. He pulls out the snakeskins next, and the biscuits, and then rattles the empty bag.

“That it?” Vasquez asks, looking doubtful. He makes a long gargling sound and then spits a shiny glob into the dirt. It’s not enough to steal; they have to be disgusting as well.

“I told you it weren’t worth your time,” I say.

Grady scowls at me. “You’re hiding something.”

Now my hand is on my gun, and I make sure they can both see it.

“That’s enough,” I say. “You’ve had your fun. Don’t make this more trouble than it needs to be.”

Vasquez sniffs, to prove he’s not impressed. “Come on,” he says to his friend. “She ain’t got nothing.”

Grady looks me up and down and sneers.

“Yeah,” he agrees, shoving a biscuit into his mouth, which only partly muffles the name he calls me. He drops my bag on the ground and they walk away from me laughing. I squeeze my hands into fists and slowly count to ten to make sure I don’t accidentally shoot them both in the back. Then I kneel down in the dirt and slowly repack my bag.

Hunters. I hate hunters.

I stand up and compose myself, sling my bag over my shoulder, and push open the door to the Homestead.

The noise hits me first, the roar of men’s voices all speaking over one another and the tinny sound of a piano underneath. It’s dark in here, and I take off my hat and wait for my eyes to adjust to the dimness after the bright afternoon sun. Tables are spread out across the room with mismatched chairs, more than half of them occupied. To the right stretches the bar, a long wooden counter that’s lost most of its shine, stools and spittoons placed in front, a tall redheaded woman behind it. The floor under my boots is sticky with old liquor and tobacco spit as I make my way toward her. She’s arguing with a sloppy-looking fellow who’s swaying on his feet.