Evavangeline, is what he wrote. Then he underlined it.
It’s an odd name, he observed. Perhaps an alias.
It ain’t that odd. My given name’s Yulena. Yulena Carp. What’s yern, Mister Walton?
Phail. And it’s Captain Walton. Please.
Fail? My word. They never give you much of a chance, did they?
Oh! Ha, ha! he said. No, dear woman, it’s with a “P-H,” as in the scientific way to measure acidity. Now, he said, smiling, when did you last see this Evavangeline creature?
She held up five fingers, he four, she five, he paid.
Left two days ago, the boardinghouse proprietor-lady said. Skipped out on her bill, she did. If you wanted to make good on it, I’d appreciate it.
Of course. Though I’m surprised you didn’t have her pay in advance.
I would of. That’s our usual policy. But she wanted to whore and cut me in for half, ye see. And sure enough, she whored a whole day, it was a line clear out the door, then the little tart vacated without giving me my cut.
I’m flabbergasted, Mrs. Carp, that you would allow such behavior on your premises.
What ye got in mind?
The woman parted her lips in what the head deputy took as an overture. Before he could stop himself and despite her advanced age, he had imagined her naked and suddenly his “bad job” (as Mother called it) sprang to life in his tight pants. Yulena Carp raised her eyebrows. Unable to pinch himself in her presence, he turned his back and bent forward and closed his eyes, imagined sawing off the hand of an innocent child. He felt himself calm.
Excuse me. He faced her and cleared his throat. However, I’m not so sure our quarry is a “she” after all.
Do what?
She’s a man! We caught her. Him. In, er, congress. With another gentleman. The other gentleman swore it was a woman with whom he was in congress with, but I and my subordinates have good reason to believe that he is prevaricating.
The Lord’s Name in vain! she hissed. How ye know?
Walton tapped his goggle lense. From witness of these very eyes. He was—forgive me!—committing a perversion in the method of species caninus with the other gentleman we caught. Sodomy, good woman, sodomy! Ungodly, it was. The depth of wickedness. Fornicating like heinous canines. And before we could apprehend him, off she flew like a demon out the window. We provided the sinner we did catch with a good thrashing, but that other “ornery” S.O.B.—sorry old boy—has thus far escaped his come-uppance.
Wait. You followed him all the way from Louisiana? Jest to give him a whooping?
Walton paused. We did. We Christian Deputies are very committed to our quest. The fact of the tavern owner’s murder and mutilation is just good fortune. Our instincts feel, shall we say, vindicated. Also, we believe she “mugged” a man outside the tavern as well.
So you seen this Evavangeline’s…? The boardinghouse woman did the Indian finger-sign for “white man’s pecker” (a hand at the crotch with the pinky hanging down).
Oh, we “seen” it all right.
And now you fixing to track him?
To the end. I swear it. He tapped one of his extra pockets. On this Bible printed in Miniature.
Say, now. She seemed distracted by his garb. Them’s nice pants.
If you covet these “britches,” all you need do is tell me and I’ll give them to you.
How come?
It’s in my Christian Deputy Code. I despise things of the flesh. Objects, I mean. I’m eager to divest myself of worldly belongings. The Good Book teaches, “Fling aside such accouterment like dust in the wind.” I’m paraphrasing.
The boardinghouse woman pointed out the parlor window. Would ye be willing to divest ye self of that horsey and saddle rig yonder? You do that you can keep them pants. And that queer tie around ye neck too.
It’s an ascot, Walton said, gazing out to where his tall white stallion stood. Ron. The very definition of “steed.” Straight-legged, straight-backed, straight-tempered. Gun-broken. Tireless in a hunt. Eyes like amber. Terrified of chickens, but since few fowl intervened in their peripatetic lives, this was manageable. The Christian Deputy leader’s hazel eyes misted at the gorgeous gray-tipped mane he had a deputy trim and comb each morning for an hour. And the rig! Across Ron’s rippling spine sat the stock saddle that had cost his mother fifty dollars at Sears, Roebuck & Co. The finest genuine oiled California skirting leather. Sixteen inch tree. Steel fork. Beaded roll cantle.
Yet when Walton departed the boardinghouse he did so on barefoot, having retained only his uniform and goggles, which she didn’t ask for. Perhaps she thought them his actual eyes; good country people had before. Meanwhile, the pockets in his pants hung like an octogenarian’s dugs.
The boardinghouse woman sat on her famous porch wearing her new Creedmoor boots propped on the rail, spitting snuff juice and rolling a cigarette. She struck a match and lit the smoke and gestured to Walton’s departing back. Sign of a polecat. A dandy boy. A large anus. The word——, for which English has no synonym.
Upriver, dawn’s dry herald brought to the hungover steamship crew news of the pervert Evavangeline had gutted the midnight before. It went bunk to bunk in whispers and giggles. Instead of falling into the water like decent folk, the pervert had gotten tangled in a fishnet hung along the ship’s port side. Throughout the night a pulsing contingent of catfish, carp, grinnel, gar, sucker, alligators and even a few river-lost sand sharks disoriented by fresh water had followed the boat, swirling in the ooze. In the morning light, enormous orange crawfish with their pinchers clicking rode the body, one arm of which trailing in the water was festooned with moccasins attached at the fang. When one became too blooded it fell loose and sank in the clouds in the sky in the river.
On board the steamboat came the further news of the doctor’s head shot half off in his bed, his jimmied-out molar. Bad luck for Evavangeline in that he had been not only the ship’s physician but the captain’s younger brother. More bad luck yet in that the pervert she’d knifed behind the barrels had been the ship’s cook as well as the captain’s older brother.
She ought never drink tequila.
The captain went about howling and throwing things from the ship. He rent his clothing and pulled clumps from his beard and rammed his head into the galley wall.
Hungover, Evavangeline watched from beneath a tarp. When she yawned the dried blood on her chin cracked. She swiped it with the back of her hand. On the open deck somebody was telling the captain that his brother the cook had last been seen with a fellow who matched a certain description. Somebody else said that same character had been seen going below with the doc. Evavangeline, meanwhile, tiptoed to the edge of the boat and slunk over the rail like a vapor and slid down a rope. Behind the barrels, the captain’s pet spider monkey found the growth of mole from the famously hot-headed dead dive-owner and raced across the deck and leapt to the captain’s shoulder and began to earnestly screw the mole into his ear.
He grabbed the monkey and flung it overboard. He picked up the growth of mole from the deck and glared at it. Its hairs had grown longer since last it was seen.
It’s a shriveled banana, the first mate said, salivating.
Naw, it’s a pickled nigger thumb, said the second mate, also salivating.
The captain threw them both overboard.
From the river the two thrashing officers saw Evavangeline dog-paddling toward land and tried to point her out, but the crew at the boat’s high rail was giving them the finger and mooning them and pissing on them and shooting at them. Somebody threw a pig.