Unbury Carol(26)

The lady smiled, seeing the man didn’t catch her meaning.

“Yes. In fact—” She turned and pointed up the planked porches of the Blandon Street shops beneath their wood awnings. “—if you just…uh…”

“Walk?” Smoke asked, helping her sound out the word.

“Why, yes. If you just walk on up the boardwalk there, beyond the blacksmith you’ll find Kirk’s General. He sells oil out the back.”

“Is it the good stuff?” Smoke asked, pointing at the lady and raising his eyebrows high. “It better be the good stuff or it just won’t do.”

The lady considered.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m not sure, of course, of what you’re used to. But I think it works fine. Many people get their oil at Kirk’s.”

“Kirk’s!”

“Yes.”

Smoke braced himself as he pushed off the horse’s back and slid to the ground. He landed hard; the oil sloshed and the tin cut through the old rags and into the flesh of his stubs. He suppressed a howl and forced a smile instead.

“Oh, my,” the lady said. “Are you sure I can’t help you? I can maybe run and get some for you. And there’s a very good doctor in town as well.”

Smoke held her eyes as he hitched the horse and removed a small hip-satchel of rags. “What would I need with a doctor, ma’am?”

And his voice was not singsong anymore. His voice was the pain of stolen legs.

The lady blushed, understanding at last that she had broached an offensive topic.

“I didn’t mean anything by it, young man. I just saw you were struggling some…”

“How so struggling?”

The lady smiled nervously. She looked to Blandon Street for someone who might explain it better than she. “I can’t say exactly…I—”

“Show me.”

But others on the street backed away. A man gripped a pistol in its holster.

The lady stammered.

“Tell me.” Smoke limped toward her. “Was I crying?”

“Well, no, of course not…”

“Was I hanging from my horse, like I might fall?”

“Pardon?”

Smoke limped closer yet, and the lady arched back.

“Let me know,” Smoke said. “Please, I need to know. Was I slobbering? Was I slobbering all over myself?”

The lady turned her face from him, trying to locate a smile but not finding it.

“Let me know,” he whispered now, his lips touching her ear. “Is it that obvious I’ve got a problem with ma legs?”

The lady stammered. Someone cocked a gun.

Smoke’s face burst into a smile. He thrust his hands toward the sky, and the lady screamed.

“Of course there’s a problem with my legs, ma’am!”

He laughed and the lady, staring at his outstretched fingers, laughed nervously with him. Smoke planted a palm flat on her shoulder. He eyed the man who had cocked the gun.

“Shudders,” he said, speaking to the lady. “Thanks an awful lot for the oil tip. I’ll go check it out for myself. Walk there, even.”

The lady breathed relief. Fear, Smoke thought. Like it used to be.

“Kirk’s,” she repeated, still shaking.

“But if it’s not the good stuff,” Smoke said, his lips curling down again, “I’ll have no choice but to find you, ask you what made you think it was.”

The lady stammered, but Smoke was already limping past her. Blandon Street was silent as he stepped awkwardly up onto the boardwalk and struggled toward the general store. He stuck his tongue out at a man standing just inside a tavern. He passed the open door of the blacksmith and chuckled at the sight of the fat man forging a pistol.

A gentleman exited Kirk’s General and saw Smoke and held the door for him. Smoke stared at him blankly and the man, confused, let it close and passed him. Smoke opened the door himself and limped inside.

“I hear you’ve got the good stuff,” he bellowed. “Oil!”

“I’ll be with you in just a moment.”

It was an old man, his face bunched, reviewing a ledger through glasses on the end of his nose. Behind him was a towering oak shelf of glass jars. The counter displayed boxes of candy for children. The dark wood floors and walls made something of a shadowed box out of the space, and Smoke thought of the road magician he’d seen who made a donkey disappear.

He stepped to the counter and eyed the ledger with the shopkeeper.

The old man, seeing he hadn’t gotten through to the customer, set the ledger down.

“Yes, and how can I help you, sir?”

Smoke spoke slowly, deliberately. The oil, of course, was very important to him. “A real nice lady told me you got the good stuff here. The best oil in town.”

“I’ve got oil.”

“Is it the good stuff?”

“Well, I’m not sure I know the difference.”

Smoke frowned. “Does it burn easy, man?”

The proprietor eyeballed Smoke long before answering, “As well as oil burns, I gather.”

Smoke nodded. “Sounds like the good stuff. Where do you keep it?”

The man wiped his hands on his blue apron and walked Smoke the length of the store to a back door made of pine.