He was about half asleep when harsh noise intruded on his reverie.
“Mr. Sam, come quick, will ya, please, will ya, my ma’s been hurt awful bad and I don’t know what to do for her, please, Mr. Sam, you got to come help her, she’s bleeding something terrible and I can’t get it to stop and …”
Longarm opened his eyes and sat upright in the barber chair.
That was Buddy Fulton talking, he saw. And that meant … shit!
The barber had already set the soap mug aside and was headed out the door with a small black case tucked under one arm. Longarm yanked the apron off his lap and stood, damp towels spilling unnoticed onto the floor from the loose wrap around his jowls.
Buddy was leading the way at a run and the barber scurried to keep up. Longarm’s long legs brought him quickly to the barber’s side.
“Mister, you don’t have …”
“I know the woman, friend. In fact I’m boarding at her house, with her and Buddy.”
“Oh. All right then.”
“Come on, dammit,” Longarm urged. “The boy said she’s bleeding.” And he broke into a run.
Chapter 19
Angela Fulton looked like she’d stepped in front of a runaway beer wagon. Her nose was broken and her left eye was puffed completely shut. Her right eye had been reduced to little more than a blue and purple slit in the side of her face. Or what remained of her face. At the moment it was hardly recognizable as one.
Most of the teeth on the left side of her mouth were so loose Longarm would have considered them gone, but the barber—the closest thing Cargyle had to a doctor, and fortunately a real barber with proper barber/surgeon schooling—claimed they would all tighten up and be saved if she wasn’t beaten on anymore for the next month or so.
“Oh, she won’t be beaten up no more, friend. I can promise you that,” Longarm said with heat in his voice.
The barber grunted, but didn’t otherwise comment on the rashness of Longarm’s statement. He just went on with his work, which at the moment was mostly concerned with stanching the flow of blood from Angela’s nose and left ear.
The heavy bleeding from the nose he stopped by taking a scrap of cloth little bigger than a good-sized postage stamp and rolling it into a tiny, sausage-shaped bundle. He pulled on Angela’s upper lip the way you will lift a mare’s lip to check her teeth, and tucked the cloth wadding tight against her gum just as high as he could force it.
“Keep that there, Mrs. Fulton. It will feel strange, but the veins going into your nose pass over the bone at that spot. If you can keep the pressure on right there for just five or ten minutes, the blood on the surface will clot and the bleeding will stop.”
Longarm wasn’t at all sure Angela was conscious enough for the barber’s instructions to register. But she didn’t spit out the cloth wadding, so maybe she was aware of her surroundings after all.
The man examined her ear, and cleaned it out as best he could with some bits of cotton speared on the end of a smooth stick. He didn’t look particularly happy when he was done there even though the bleeding had stopped, pretty much on its own.
“Too soon to say if she’ll lose the hearing in that ear or not. Could go either way.”
Longarm scowled but didn’t say anything.
“Buddy, was your mama hit in the stomach or the chest area?”
“I dunno, Mr. Sam. I wasn’t here. I’d gone out to the Parker farm to get the day’s milk and bring it in, me and Peppy.”
Peppy, or had he said Pepe? Not that it mattered. After a moment Longarm remembered that was Buddy’s pony.
“I took it to the store the same as usual and came back here just a coupla minutes ago. I found her just like you see now, Mr. Sam. Is she gonna be all right, Mr. Sam?”
“She’s going to be just fine, Buddy. But I need for you and the gentleman here to step outside now. I have to look your mama over to see if she’s hurt anyplace we can’t see. I’m thinking she probably has some busted ribs, so I’ll have to wrap her tight to take away some of the hurting. But I won’t know that for sure until I examine her. Now you scoot outside, Buddy. And you too, Mister … ?”
It was a poor time for introductions, but Longarm gave his name and took Buddy outside. They stood close to the door. Longarm had a cigar to fiddle with to occupy his hands if not his thoughts. Poor little Buddy didn’t have that much of a distraction. Twice they heard Angela cry out in pain, quickly followed by Sam the Barber’s soothing comments to her.
“Buddy?”
“Yes, sir?”
“You got any idea who might’ve done this to your mama or why?”
“No, sir. I can’t think of nobody that don’t like my ma. She gets along with most everybody.”
Except at least one person, Longarm amended silently.
“Did you see anyone on the street when you and, uh, Peppy were coming back home? Anybody going toward town from down this way?”
“Just Mr. Terry. But he wouldn’t … Mr. Long, can I tell you a secret? It’s something … promise me if I tell that you won’t tell nobody else. Not never.”
“I won’t tell anyone if there’s any way I can keep from it, son. I can make you that promise.”
“I just … you remember what that damn Rick said yesterday?”
It took Longarm a few seconds to recall who Rick was. And what he’d said. “Oh, yes. Now I remember.”
“Well, what he said … Ma does work for Mr. Terry over at the saloon. I don’t know what she does there, but she don’t want me to know about it. I don’t think it’s real bad like that damn Rick says. But it’s something she don’t talk about. Not to me. Anyway, she like … kinda works for Mr. Terry. So I wouldn’t think he’d hurt her. Do you?” The boy gave Longarm a deeply troubled look.
“I can’t see why he would want to hurt your mother whether or not she works for him sometimes,” Longarm said smoothly. It came out slick as snot on ice. But it was a lie through and through. Longarm could think of exactly why Mr. Cletus Terry would beat up on Angela Fulton this morning.
After all, that poor, sweet woman had seen Mister Musclehead’s nose rubbed in the dirt last night. And by a man who hadn’t even raised a sweat in doing it. She’d seen him humiliated and for some bullies—and Lord knows Cletus Terry seemed to qualify for that designation—that was enough of an excuse and more than enough.
Longarm’s eyes narrowed as he drew smoke deep into his lungs, held it, and slowly let it trickle out again.
Cletus Terry. Entrepreneur and respected businessman hereabouts. Chummy with Harry Bolt. Which meant there was no way, never a chance, that anything—anything—Clete Terry might choose to do to, with, or about Angela Fulton would ever get the man in trouble with what passed for the law in Cargyle. And wasn’t that a shame.
Longarm finished his cheroot and tossed it onto the ground.
“Mister? You don’t think she’ll die, do you?”
Longarm gave Buddy a startled look. Good Lord, the kid all this time had been thinking that?
“No, son. Your mama isn’t going to die.” His eyes narrowed. “She isn’t going to be hurt anymore either.”
“Mister,” the barber called out. “Could you come here for a minute? I can’t get this tape wound tight enough by myself.”
“Wait here, Buddy. We’ll talk some more when I come out again. And don’t you worry none. Your mama is gonna be all right now. I promise.”
Chapter 20
Longarm didn’t recognize the day man behind the bar at Cletus Terry’s saloon. Didn’t have any quarrel with him either. The man, at least as far as Longarm knew, had had nothing to do with the beating of Angela Fulton. “Yes, what will it be this morning?”