"Will, do forgive me —" She rushed to him, contrite. The four young men in leather aprons and portly, pie-faced Norvil Watless, the salesman, smiled and offered greetings as she flung her arms around Will's neck and kissed him. "There was all sorts of wagon traffic on the bridge. I couldn't cross for ten whole minutes."
"Well, I waited," he said, sounding edgy as he tapped fingers on the sheeted object that was the center of attention. "Guess we're all here. Let's take a look."
She noticed the tremor of his hand as he grasped the sheet. She also noticed the red rims at the bottom of his eyes; he needed spectacles and wouldn't buy them. But his shoulders squared as he paused for effect, then whipped off the sheet.
The workmen clapped. "Godamighty, what a beauty," Norvil Watless wheezed. Even Ashton gasped.
The piano was an upright, a style made popular because it fit nicely in those small, new-style Parisian dwellings, appartements, that were all the rage. The case was a lustrous blackish wood with broad streaks in the grain the color of rust. Centered above the keyboard in a gold-leaf wreath, Fenway appeared in Old English script.
"That's a gorgeous rosewood case —" Watless began.
"Brazilian jacaranda," Will corrected. "Cheaper. But call it rosewood anyway."
He stroked the sleek, shiny top, his tiredness seeming to fall away as he explained to Ashton, "I can't build a better one for the money. She's got a full iron frame, overstrung scale —"
"French action," Watless exclaimed. Ashton had learned that a Paris-made upright action was synonymous with fine quality.
"No. I bought the action in the U.S.," Will said. "But the selling sheet says it's French-style, so be sure you get across the idea that it's from Paris. After all, you won't be calling on the most honest customers in the world."
Ashton wanted to say something to please him. "You should be proud, Will."
"I may be proud and bankrupt, too, if she doesn't sell. By the way, it is a she — I named this model the Ashton."
She squealed in surprise, then actually felt touched. She hugged him again, and was aware of the weary sag of his body momentarily resting against hers. He waved. 'Try her out, Norvil."
The salesman pulled up a stool, flexed his fingers, then launched a tentative "Camptown Races."
"Louder, Norvil," Will said.
Norvil played louder.
"Faster." Norvil picked up the tempo. The music seemed to push out through the piano's closed front with a clangorous, slightly metallic sound. Norvil segued into "Marching Through Georgia." You could practically hear the bugles and tramping feet.
One of the workmen did a little jig. "By damn, that's an upright!"
"That's right," Will agreed. "You don't give a damn about sweet, mellow tones in a sporting house. You want noise. Noise, Norvil!"
Norvil obligingly gave them Verdi's "Anvil Chorus." Ashton clapped her little red gloves together, delighted. Will gave her a strange, grave, sideways look, then said, "I can make as many as you sell, Norvil, but if you don't sell any, you can visit me at the poor farm, provided the suppliers haven't beat me to death. Well, guess we'd better open the bottle of sour mash, hadn't we?"
Ashton had never seen a celebration announced with such a lack of zest. It made her a little grave too, reminding her of what would happen if the Ashton upright piano failed.
When Norvil and the workmen finished the bottle, Will closed up the loft, giving them the rest of the day free. He dropped the empty bottle in a trash barrel. "The cards are all dealt, Ashton. We might as well spend our last dollar on a venison steak at the cafe on the corner."
She agreed. Neither said much until they were seated amid pots of wilting ferns, layers of cigar smoke, and an otherwise all-male clientele, most of whom goggled at her spectacular looks.
Her red-gloved hand clasped his. "Will, what's giving you the glooms?"
He avoided her eye. "You don't want to know."
"Yes, I do." She pouted prettily. "Yes!"
His weary red-rimmed eyes fastened on her. "I've never said this to you, because I was never sure we'd get this far. It eats on me, Ashton."
"What?" Now her pretty pout looked forced, nervous. "What?"
"Santa Fe."
"I beg your pardon?"
"What keeps bothering me is Santa Fe. That man Luis you shot when you needn't have." Anger reddened her face. He gripped her wrist, and she felt the strength hidden in his dilapidated old body. "Let me finish. I have nightmares about that man. Bad ones. God knows I'm no pillar of virtue. And I like you, I really do. I like your pertness, your looks, your grit, the ambition you don't cover up with a lot of mealymouthed lies. But there's a certain streak in you that your daddy should have whipped out of you with a willow wand. A mean streak. It made you shoot down a defenseless man. Whether Fenway pianos are a disaster or the mother lode, either way —" The next came after a rush of breath, as if a burden were lifting. "I've resolved that if you ever do something that low again, we're quits. No, don't argue. No excuses. You murdered him." His voice was quiet, so no one could eavesdrop. But she heard it like a roaring wind, cold as January.
He extricated his hand. "Do anything like that again, we're quits, understand?"
Her immediate reaction was renewed rage. Once, Huntoon had said something similar, and she'd jeered, then tongue-lashed him. Now she opened her moist red mouth to do it to Will — and couldn't.
She shivered. Hastily, she examined her choices. She bowed her head.
"I understand."
He smiled. Tiredly, but he smiled. He patted her hand. "All right. I feel better. Let's order up. In fact, let's ruin the whole blasted day and get drunk. It's either all over or just starting. I gave it everything. So did you."
Their eyes met in a strange, tranquil moment of understanding. Why did she admire this frail old man? Because he had pure steel in him? Because he could deliver an edict and make her take it? Unexpectedly, her eyes misted.
"Yes, we did. Let's drink like lords and then let's go to bed."
"I'll probably do nothin' but fall asleep."
"That's all right. I'll keep you warm."
It perked him up, and he actually showed some jocularity as he snapped his fingers for the waiter. "Well, why not? It's all up to Norvil now. Norvil and the whorehouse owners of these great United States."
32
Someone touched his foot.
Awake instantly, Charles flipped his black hat off his face while his right hand jumped to his Colt. The revolver cleared leather and he recognized Corporal Magee, his dark face patterned by sun falling through parched cottonwood leaves.
Charles's hammering heart slowed. "When I'm asleep, yell, don't grab me. Else you're liable to get a bullet."
"Sorry, sir. We got some smoke."
He pointed away southwest where the Smoky Hill River blazed in the noonday like a cutout of tin. A thin black pillar stood in the white sky. Charles scrambled up and ran to find his tracker.
He and his ten-man detachment were patrolling out of Fort Harker along a twenty-five-mile stretch of the stage line south and west of the post. Here the Smoke Hill branch of the Kaw diverged from the surveyed right-of-way of the Union Pacific, Eastern Division. The soldiers had sought relief from the July heat among the river-bottom trees. They didn't find much. The red bandanna around Charles's throat felt like a wet rag. His bare chest shone with sweat.
He found the tracker seated on the ground and rummaging among the bits of root, flints, arrowheads, spent bullets from his medicine bundle, a small drawstring bag traditionally holding a personal collection of articles selected to promote strength, ward off sickness and enemies, and remind the possessor of important aspects of his religion.