“You really think I’m good?” she said. “At shooting, I mean. You really?” She looked radiant. Her face had fully healed and every passing day I’d marveled even more at how truly lovely she was.
“Your daddy didn’t know the half of it,” I said. “You’re a regular Barney Oldfield and a regular Annie Oakley.”
And so, a week later, when I told her what I had in mind and she said she wanted to do the job with me, I said, “Well now, I don’t know about that. Let me think about it.”
The truth was, I’d been thinking about it for days.
The day after the arrival of Bubber’s telegram, we heard Russell and Charlie arguing in their room. He’d had her go into town that morning and buy a crutch—“To have ready for when I’m able,” he’d said. But when she got back with it he wanted to use it immediately. He said he needed to get up and walk around some before he went crazy from being on his ass day and night.
“I knew it!” she said. “What a dope I am! The doctor said to stay off that leg a month and you know it.”
“What the hell do doctors know? I’m turning into a goddam vegetable lying here all day.”
“If you put weight on the leg before it’s ready you might hurt it worse. It needs to mend more.”
“That’s what a crutch is for, to keep weight off it. Now quit arguing and hand it over here.”
“No. Quit acting like such a child!”
“Quit acting like my goddam mother!”
She stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind her and stomped into the kitchen to snatch up her cigarettes without a glance at me and Belle and headed out the back door, letting it bang shut on its spring. Belle gave me a look and then went after her.
I went to Russell’s door and opened it. He was sitting up on the edge of the bed looking gloomy.
“Jesus,” he said. “Bad enough without having to put up with her shit too.”
He gestured for the crutch leaning in the corner and I got it for him.
“Easy does it,” I said, helping him up and slipping the crutch under his arm.
“Beep beep,” he said to get me out of his way. He stepped off a few awkward paces, repositioned the crutch for a more comfortable fit, then slowly gimped out of the room and into the parlor and all around it and came back down the hall and into the kitchen. Bracing himself on his good leg, he eased down into a chair and let out a hard breath.
“Christ damn,” he said. “Feel like I run a mile.” His face shone with sweat.
I checked the bandages. The one on his back was still spotless, but there were a couple of rosy stains showing on the back of the one around his leg.
“Best keep off it yet for a while longer,” I said.
“Goddammit,” he muttered.
I offered to get him a cold soda pop but he said the hell with that, give him a beer. I got one for each of us and sat across from him and we clinked bottles in a silent toast and drank. Then I told him about our tight money situation and asked how much he had.
“Had about twenty bucks on me in Midland,” he said. “Charlie’s probably spent most of it by now.”
“Well,” I said, “there’s only one thing for it.”
“Hell kid, I’ll be ready to go in a few days. First we deliver Buck and then we get back to working Bubber’s jobs.”
“Bullshit, Russell. You’re still leaking, man. Be a couple of weeks, at least, before you can even get around on that crutch worth a damn.”
“Coupla weeks, my ass,” he said. He looked miserable.
He shook a Chesterfield out of an open pack on the table and I struck a match and lit it for him. He drew deep on it and exhaled slowly. We didn’t say anything for a minute as he thought things over.
“One score might be enough,” I said. “Might need two. Filling station, grocery. Enough to see us through till you’re okay.”
He took another deep drag, exhaled a long stream of smoke and nodded. “Yeah, I guess. But you can’t hit anyplace around here. Got to be out of the county, at least, and the further the better. If you do more than one, spread them way out.”
“I know it,” I said.
“And no lone wolfing,” he said. “Even with nickel-and-dime jobs, you can run into a world of trouble. You’ll need a guy at the wheel and ready for backup. I’ll give Bubber a call, see if he can get you—”
“I already got somebody in mind,” I said.
“Who’s that?”
“Belle.”
He looked at me like he thought I was pulling his leg.
I told him all about how well she could drive, how naturally she’d taken to handling a handgun. He listened with a smile.
“Well, that girl’s full of surprises, ain’t she?” he said. “All the same—”
“And,” I said, “a woman partner would be perfect. She can put her hair up under her hat, see, and wear a jacket to hide her tits. Unless somebody gets right up close to her, everybody’ll think she’s a man. Once we drive off, she ditches the hat and jacket and we’re a married couple on a car trip and the cops are looking for two guys.”
“Real clever,” he said. “But just because she was good at shooting rocks didn’t mean she’d be good at shooting at a real person, if it came to that—especially if the real person had a gun too and was shooting at her.
“It’s a whole different thing, Sonny, and you damn well know it. And speeding around in the desert ain’t like making a getaway through streets full of cars and people and with the cops maybe right on your tail. I don’t have to tell you this stuff.”
“No you don’t,” I said. “I’ve talked it over with her and told her how it can be. She thinks she can handle whatever comes up.”
“Oh she thinks so? What if she can’t and you get taken down because of it? Goddammit, I need you to help me with Buck.” He leaned back and let out a long breath. “I’d ruther we asked Bubber to get you somebody experienced.”
“Then we’d have to give them a piece of the take,” I said, “and the take’ll be awful small as it is. I wouldn’t think Bubber’d care to have anything to do with such smalltime jobs anyway. Look, man, she can do it. It’s only the driving.”
“Well hell, it’s your job, kid,” he said. “You got my advice for what it’s worth, take it or leave it.” But I could tell how mad he was by the way he gave his attention to the bandage on his leg and then to lighting a fresh cigarette, to anything that kept him from having to look me in the eye.
“I guess I’ll give her a try,” I said.
Miller Faulk made no trouble in the county lockup, not whenever any guard was in earshot. His fellows in the tank were mostly drunks and petty thieves and it had not proved difficult to make his point to them that he wished to be let alone. He passed his days in his rude bunk, brooding on the perfidy of women, the absurdity of love, the cruel nature of existence. A week into his sentence he received a visit from Weldon, who brought him cigarettes and tidings that Eula had departed for places unknown. This news came as no surprise to Faulk and saddened him but little until Weldon added that she’d departed in his yellow Pierce-Arrow—whereupon Faulk had with the fervor of a true believer supplicated the Lord Almighty to afflict her with cancer of the cunt. That, he told Weldon, would pretty much cover her from head to toe. Still and all, he comported himself as a model prisoner, and after twenty-one days behind bars he was granted a good-time release into the supposed free world.