He takes a deep breath and, in the oak-framed mirror, examines his new duds: a fringed and beaded buckskin shirt with matching leggings, soft and bleached a golden hue, glossy new boots with silver spurs, the boots embossed with shootout, stampede, and campfire scenes, a white tengallon hat with silky white neckerchief, and hand-tooled gunbelt. He fills out these things in ways unfamiliar to him, as though he might have swelled up in the long soak. He’s clean-shaven, barbered, and his nails have been trimmed. Pulling on a pair of snow-white kid gloves, thin as new skin, he counts his fingers: all there. His old rags are gone, nothing left of them but for his rumpled wide-brimmed hat, afloat on the soap scum in the wooden tub, and the braided scalp knotted to his new gunbelt. Whereon are also strapped a pair of engraved, silver-plated, ivory-handled Peacemakers and, in its own rawhide sheath, his old bowie knife, wiped clean and polished up so bright he can see himself in its blade, the staghorn handle newly silver-studded as though to marker its most recent history. He fingers all these things speculatively, and also the new Winchester leaning there with its hand-carved mahogany stock and engraved brass fittings, meditating the while upon his old felt hat, once dun-colored, now darker with the water it’s sucked up, riding gloomily on the cold gray surface of the bathwater like a derelict river raft. Or the bloated back of something long demised.
Hlo, cowboy. It’s the barroom chanteuse with the orange curls and the ruby in her cheek, propped up in the bed in a silky black nightgown with slots in it for putting her powdered ruby-tipped breasts on view. He takes in the sight, then turns away, picks up the long-barreled rifle to check its heft and balance. Good range and easy to draw a bead with but less lethal maybe up close, and up close is mostly what killing he’s had to do out here on the desert. Might have to hack off a few inches. C’mon over here, darlin, and solace a poor widder woman with a sorely achin heart and a lonesome pussy sufferin from a sudden and dreadful deprivement.
Sorry, mam. I aint the condolin sort.
Well fetch yerself over and set yer dick t’dancin in the damn thing then, it aint overparticular about yer intentions.
Some other time mebbe.
Dont be so crool, kid. Caint yu see how I’m hurtin? Whut’s eatin yu anyhow?
I dunno. He sighs, looks up. Her pale breasts have sagged somewhat, losing their perkiness, the nipples pointed bellyward now in a downcast humor. I thought I’d drowned.
She notices him staring and cups her breasts with both hands to aim them up at his face again. C’mere, honey, she says. C’mere’n nuzzle these a spell’n tell me all about it.
Aint nuthin t’tell. I wuz underwater. And then I wuznt.
Well well I declare, as proper folks’d say. But git over here closer. All this bereavin has stobbed my ears up so, I caint rightly hear yu away over thar.
It dont matter. He turns to study himself in the mirror, considering why it is he’s been fitted out like this. He feels exceedingly powerful and yet powerfully vulnerable at the same time. Strange country. All this empty space, a body can see for miles. Yet it’s impossible to shake the feeling that, whichever way he turns, he’s got somebody or something just behind him.
We all know yu’re purtier’n a pitcher, sweetiepie, but taint right keepin it all to yerself. C’mon. Give this good ole girl a little cuddle. Thet aint too much to ask, is it?
Sorry, mam. They’s sumthin I gotta do. Caint even guess whut it is, but it’s like sumthin’s goin on twixt me’n them men down thar, and taint over yet.
Them men! They aint nuthin! Yu seen how they treat a lady!
Yup. Well. He opens the door, steps out on the landing, his rifle cocked. His new boots crunch grit underfoot. He bats away the cobwebs: a general murmurous gloom all about. Down below in the dark empty saloon, the furniture lies flung about in a tipped and broken scatter, decorated with playing cards, old empty bottles, poker chips, the odd ruined hat or broken-heeled boot, evidence of a livelier time past. Long past: dust on everything like a crusty shroud. Next to the busted wheel of fortune, the grand piano has fallen to its knees, grinning up at him its yellowed rictus grin, mirroring one he feels spreading in alarm across his own jaws: he backs into the room he has just left and shoves the door shut.
Well, says the voice from the bed, whut a unespected supprise. Always happy t’have visitors.
Aint nobody out thar, he says.
Must be they aint ready fer yu yet, she says, patting the black satin pillows beside her. There’s a bottle and two glasses on the bedside table, and she’s lit up a sweet-smelling smoke. Looks like yu got time t’kill, cowboy.
Yeah. Well. Whut other kind is they?
She smiles at that and her breasts pop to life again. Thet’s a sight better. Now c’mere, handsome, and lemme instruct yu how them fancy britches come off.
This time the men are waiting for him when he comes out of the room, still retying his leggings. Before he can draw on them, they grab him and slap him up against the wall and he figures he’s a dead man. But they heave him roughly onto their shoulders and parade him down the wooden stairs to the packed-out saloon, bellowing out “Weaned and Ropebroke,” the hunchbacked piano player in his white shirt and yellow suspenders pounding away at the presumptive tune while the others stomp on the wooden floor and clap and bang bottles on the tables to the rhythm.
They set him down on top of a round cardtable in the middle of the room and crowd around, denying him any route to the floor or door. He could shoot his way out of here, he supposes, but it might get ugly and anyway where would he go except back out on that godforsaken desert, so for the moment he straightens up to his full height and gazes impassively down at them, hands on his hips, awaiting whatever’s to come.
Yo, throw a gander at them duds, boys!
Whoo-eee! It’s like he’s lit up from his innards out!
Strikes me blind jest t’peer in his dee-rection!
There’s a peculiar odor in the air, not one he’s brought with him. It takes him a moment to recognize it as fresh roasted meat. His nose soaks in the rarity as the desert might a sudden shower. The men below him, he sees now, are waving gnawed bones about in the flickering lamplight, drumming on tables with them, shouting and laughing through mouthfuls of half-chewed flesh, washing it all down with tumblers of whiskey. Which seem to be on the house. Over their hairy and hatted heads, through the swinging doors, it’s nighttime outside. He’s not sure where the day has got to.
Here’s to yu, champ! hollers a squint-eyed graybeard in a topless straw boater, raising his glass, then downing its contents in a single swig. He concludes his toast with a full-throated belch that the others, encircling him, resoundingly echo. They bang their empty tumblers on the tables and more whiskey is passed around, fueling the mounting agitation.
Whoo! Dont he stink nice!
Like hot pussy on the hoof!
Jest lookit them silver six-shooters, willya!
And them pitcherbook boots!
Thet blade with alla studs in!
Thet signifies!
Thet buckaroo’s been thar, man!
Should oughter nail a few studs on thet dick a his, too!
After whut it’s been through up thar, it might be hard t’find!
Haw! It might be hard t’find but yu shore wont find it hard!