"Jim, here, will stay with you." The boy looked at him with a plea in his eyes, and Will scowled. Then he rose and walked out without looking at the woman.
Standing in front of the hotel, Dick Maddox looked over toward the cafe as Calender came out, putting on his hat. Maddox glanced at the three men with him, and they grinned as he looked back toward Calender, who was coming toward them now.
"You married yet, Will?"
Calender glanced at Maddox's closed face, at the beard bristles and the cigarette and the eyes in the shadow of the hat brim. "Not yet," he said, and looked straight ahead again, not slowing his stride. Maddox waited until he was looking at Calender's back. He drew on the cigarette and exhaled and said slowly, "Some men will marry just about anything."
Calender's boots sounded on the planking one, two, three, then stopped. He came around. "Do you mean me, Dick?"
A smile touched the corner of Dick Maddox's mouth. "Old man Granby used to have a saying: If the shoe fits, wear it."
"You can talk plainer than that." "How plain, Will?"
"Talk like a man for a change."
"Well, as a man, I'm wondering if you're going to go ahead and marry this-- Miss Conway." One of the men behind him laughed but cut it off.
"What if I am?"
Maddox shrugged. "Every man to his own taste."
Calender stepped closer to him. "Dick, if I was married to that woman and you said what you have--you'd be dead right now."
"That's opinion, Will." Maddox smiled because he was sure he could take Will Calender and he wanted to make sure the three men with him knew it. Calender said, "The point is, I'm not married to her yet. Not yet. If you don't come out with what's on your mind now, you better not come out with it about two hours from now."
Maddox shook his head. "You're a warnin' man, Will."
"What did she do in Tascosa?" Calender said bluntly.
Maddox hesitated, grinning. "Worked at the Casa Grande."
"And that's what?"
"You never been to Tascosa?"
"I just never saw the place."
"Well, the Casa Grande's where a sweaty trail hand goes for his drink, gamblin', and girls." Maddox paused. "I could draw you a picture, Will."
"Dick, if you're pullin' a joke--"
"Ask anybody in town."
Calender looked at the hat-brim shadow and the eyes, the eyes that held without wavering. Then he turned and went up the street.
From his office window, Hillpiper, the Anton Chico Justice of the Peace, watched Will Calender cross the street. The office was above the jail and offered a view of sun, dust, and adobe; there was nothing else to see in Anton Chico, unless you were looking down the streets east, then you'd see the Pecos.
Hillpiper sat down at his desk, hearing the boots on the stairs, and when the knock came he said, "Come in, Will."
"How'd you know it was me?"
"Sit down." Hillpiper smiled. "You had an appointment for this morning, and I've got a window." Hillpiper wore silver-rim spectacles for close work, but he looked over them to Calender sitting across the desk from him.
Calender said, "You know what everybody in town's saying?"
Hillpiper shook his head. "Not everybody." "They're talking about this woman I'm to marry."
"I'll say it again. Not everybody."
Calender's raw-boned face was tightening, and his voice was louder. "How can they know so much about her--and me, the man that's to marry her, not know anything?"
"It's happened before," Hillpiper said.
"You heard what they're saying?"
"I heard Maddox in the saloon last night. Is he the everybody you're talking about?"
"He's enough. But it's what she is!" Calender said savagely. "What she didn't tell in her letters!"
"Three letters," Hillpiper said mildly. Calender had told him about it when the arrangements and set the date: the marriage broker in Santa Fe writing to him, then writing to the woman. Hillpiper had told him it was all right as far as he was concerned, since he didn't see why two people had to love each other to get along. Love's something that might come, but if it didn't- look at all the marriages getting on without it. And Calender had said, That's right. I never thought of that. See, my little girl's the main reason.
"In three letters," Hillpiper went on, "a woman hardly has time to open up her heart."
"She could have told me what she did!"
"Just what does she do, Will?"
"You heard Maddox."
"I want to hear it from you."
"She worked at the Casa Grande!" Calender flared. "How do you want me to say it?"
Hillpiper put his palms on the desk and leaned forward. "All right, Will, she worked in a saloon. She danced with trail hands, maybe sang a little and smiled more than was natural to get the boys to buy the extra drink they'd a bought anyway. And that's all she's done, regardless of how Maddox makes a dozen words sound like a whole story. Why she did that kind of work, I don't know. Maybe she had to because there was nothing else for a girl to do and she still had to eat like anybody else. Maybe it killed her to do it. Or"--Hillpiper's voice was quieter and he shrugged--"maybe she liked doing it. Maybe she forgot where she carried her morals--assuming what she was doing is morally wrong. By most men's standards it is wrong for a female to work in a saloon, your standards too or you wouldn't be here with your face tied in a knot. But those same men have a hell of a good time with the females when they're at the Casa Grande."
Hillpiper smiled faintly. "You were always a little stricter than most men anyway, Will. Seems like most of your life you've been a hard-working, Bible-reading family man, with no time for places like the Casa Grande. You've sweated your ranch into something pretty nice, something most other men wouldn't have the patience or the guts to do. And I can see you not wanting to chance ruining all you've built--ranch or family. That's why I was a little surprised when you of all people came in with this mail-order romance idea. I suspect, now that I think about it, you had the idea if a girl wants to get married she's the simon-pure family type and nothing else. You had a good woman before, Will; so you expected one just as good this time." Hillpiper leaned a little closer, his eyes on Calender's weathered face. "Will," Hillpiper said. "You might be shocked a little bit, but when you get to heaven you're going to see a lot of faces you never expected to see. Folks who got up there on God's standards and not man's. For all you know, you're liable to even see Dick Maddox--though I suppose that would be stretching divine mercy a little thin."
Anton Chico's Justice of the Peace leaned back in his swivel chair, his coat opening to show a gold watch chain across his vest. His hand came out of a side pocket with a cigar, and with a match from a vest pocket he lit it, puffing a cloud of smoke. When he looked up, Calender was standing.