Early in the year, a telegraph message sent care of Jack Duncan had informed Charles of the murder of George Hazard's wife. Bent's long vendetta against the two families only strengthened Charles's conviction that the world and most of those in it were worthless. He didn't suppose Bent would ever come after him, though Charles had frightened him badly in Texas before the war.
Since January, Charles had returned to Leavenworth only twice. Duncan treated him with stiff-necked correctness, but no warmth. He let Charles know that he disapproved of the frequency with which Charles took a drink. Charles had tried to play with his son, talk to him, but the boy didn't like to be alone with him, always wanting to return to Maureen or the brigadier.
There were no letters from Willa waiting at Leavenworth, either. Nor had he written.
He was in his usual sullen, spiteful mood as he yanked the flimsy back door open and stalked down the dim hall to start work.
Professor was hammering the Fenway. Two cowhands were dancing with two of the whores on the plank floor. Three tables held groups of noisy, dusty drinkers. Charles saw some of the cowhands eye him as he strode toward the end of the shiny fifty-foot brass-fitted bar.
"Hit me, Lem." The bartender dutifully poured a double shot of his special-stock bourbon. Charles knocked it back, not noticing a seated cowboy whispering to another, who had curly blond hair. The blond youngster studied Charles with contempt. The place smelled of spit and sawdust, cigars and trail dust, and of cow chips someone had stepped in. Trade was brisk for half past five, and no more boisterous than usual. Down a staircase opposite the bar came the owner, five-foot-tall Nellie Slingerland. Nellie was somewhere over forty, always wore high-necked gowns, and had the biggest bosom Charles had ever seen on a woman so petite. Her eyes were bright and calculating, her cheeks pitted from some childhood disease. Nellie cost twice as much as any of the other whores, but to Charles she gave herself free. They slept together once or twice a week, usually during the day, and Charles always had to be good and drunk first. "Roll over here, buck," she'd say, and then he'd straddle her and push in and hold himself with straightened arms while he did her. She always yelled and jumped a lot. Because he was so tall, his head stuck out beyond hers. She never saw his closed eyes, or the strange twisted-up expression on his face. He always tried to pretend she was Willa. It never worked.
"How are you, buck?" Nellie's expensive tooled mule-ear boots thumped as she approached. She was called Trooper Nell because she refused to take the boots off for any man, Charles included. Abilene told a lot of tales about her: She was a former schoolteacher; she had poisoned her husband for his money on their farm near Xenia, Ohio; she preferred women.
"I'd be better if this heat would break," Charles said. He hated her term of address, buck, as if he were some field hand. But she paid him, so he put up with it.
"You look mad enough to chew a brick."
"I didn't sleep so well."
"Something new," she said sarcastically, reaching for the glass of lemonade the bartender poured from her private pitcher. She drank no strong spirits. "You're a damn good bouncer, buck, but you make it pretty obvious you don't like it. I'm starting to think you don't belong here."
She helped herself to more lemonade while surveying the customers. She paid special attention to the table where the blond cowhand sat. He was making all the noise.
"Watch that bunch," she said. 'The young ones cause the most trouble."
Charles nodded and remained lounging with his back against the bar, the Spencer stock jutting above his left shoulder. Presently the blond cowboy staggered to the dance floor, rudely pushing Squirrel Tooth Jo and her customer out of his way as he veered toward Professor. He requested something. Professor looked dubious. The cowboy slapped gold pieces on the top of the shiny black upright, looking truculent. Professor shot a look at Nellie and swung into "Dixie."
The blond cowboy whooped and waved his hat. He stepped on his chair and then onto the table where his friends were seated. Nellie bobbed her head at Charles. It meant, Stop that.
For the first time since awakening, he felt a pleasant anticipation. A roughly dressed man pushed the street doors open just then, caught Charles's eye, and grinned. The big bearded fellow in quilled pants and a fringed buckskin coat was familiar, but Charles couldn't quite place him. He had other things on his mind.
At the front end of the bar someone had left half a glass of whiskey. Charles gulped it, then reached across his left shoulder, unslinging the Spencer. He walked toward the table where the cowboy was dancing. The other men at the table stopped talking and pushed their chairs away. The cowboy's boot heels kept pounding the table, which sagged now.
"Buying drinks doesn't entitle you to break the furniture," Charles said, forcing a conversational tone.
"I like to dance. I like this music." The cowboy was no Texan. His thick accent said cotton South. Alabama, maybe.
"You can enjoy it sitting down. Get off the table."
"When I'm ready, soldier."
Charles's eyebrows shot up. The cowboy gave him a bleary grin, challenging him. "Soldier, I heard all about you in a place up the street. Hampton's Cavalry, but you went back in the U.S. Army afterward. We'd tar you for that in Mobile."
Out of patience, Charles reached for his leg. "Get down."
The cotton South cowboy hauled back with his boot and kicked Charles, clipping his left shoulder and throwing him off balance. The cowboy jumped down as Charles staggered.
Another cowhand snatched Charles's Spencer. Two more seized his arms. Charles bashed one and temporarily drove him back. Loco drunk, the blond youngster drove two blows into Charles's belly.
The impact knocked Charles away from his captors. He slipped and skidded, then dropped into a crouch. His Spencer lay six feet away.
"Stop that damned fool," Nellie cried as the cowboy pulled his .44 revolver.
His friends dove out of the way on either side, leaving no one near him. A similar exodus emptied the dance floor. The cowboy fired as Charles rolled to the right. The bullet flung up splinters and dust.
Nellie screamed, "That floor cost three hundred dollars, you son of a bitch!"
The bleary cowboy aimed at Charles again. Something slid along the floor to Charles's right hand. He saw only the boots and quilled pants of the man who'd slid him the Spencer. Before the cowboy could shoot again, Charles shot him in the stomach.
The cowboy flew backward, landing on the table and breaking it. Charles lurched up, favoring his left leg, which he'd twisted badly. One whore shrieked; Squirrel Tooth Jo fainted. In the ensuing silence, Nellie began, "Well, I guess that —" She got no further. Charles put a second bullet in the fallen cowboy. The body jerked and slid a foot. Charles fired a third time. The body kept jerking and sliding.
"Leave off," Nellie said, dragging his arm down.
"Self-defense, Nellie." He was shaking, fury barely under control.
"The first time. Why'd you need the other shots? You're as bad as any damn Indian."
Charles stared at her, trying to summon an answer. His left leg gave out. He hit the floor in a sprawl.
They carried him to the shanty and lowered him to the cot. Nellie shooed the barkeep and the porter out and regarded him soberly.
"The boy's dead, buck."
He said nothing.
"You can rest here till you leg's better, but I'm giving you notice. I know you had to defend yourself but you didn't have to mutilate him. Word gets around. Temper like yours, it's bad for business. I'm sorry."