“Magic Child! God-damn!” he said and threw his arms around her and gave her a big hug.
“Jack,” she said. “You big man!”
“I’ve missed you, Magic Child,” he said. He and Magic Child had fucked a few times and he had a tremendous respect for her quick lean body.
He liked her a lot but sometimes he was a little awestruck and disturbed by how much she looked like Miss Hawkline. They looked so much alike that they could have been twins. Everybody in town noticed it but there was nothing they could do about it, so they just let it be.
“These are my friends,” she said, making the introductions. “I want you to meet them. This is Greer and this is Cameron. I want you to meet Jack Williams. He’s the town marshal.”
Greer and Cameron were smiling softly at the intensity of Magic Child’s and Jack Williams’ greeting.
“Howdy,” Jack Williams said, shaking their hands. “What are you boys up to?”
“Come on now,” Magic Child said. “These are my friends.”
“I’m sorry,” Jack Williams said, laughing. “I’m sorry, boys. I own a saloon here. Any time you want there’s a drink waiting over there for you and it’s on me.”
He was a fair man and people respected him for it.
Greer and Cameron liked him immediately.
They liked people who had strong character. They didn’t like to kill people like Jack Williams. Sometimes it made them feel bad afterwards and Greer would always say. “I liked him.” and Cameron would always answer, “Yeah, he was a good man.” and they wouldn’t say anything more about it after that.
Just then some gunshots rang out in the hills above Billy. Jack Williams paid no attention to the shots.
“5, 6,” Cameron said.
“What’s that?” Jack Williams said.
“He was counting the gunshots,” Greer said.
“Oh, that. Oh, yeah,” Jack Williams said. “They’re up there probably killing themselves or killing off their animals. Frankly, I don’t give a fuck. Excuse me, Magic Child, I’m sorry. I’ve got a tongue that was hatched on an outhouse seat. I’m saving it for my old age. Instead of whittling, I’ll stop cussing.”
“What’s the shooting about?” Greer said, nodding his head up toward the twilight hills towering above Billy.
“Oh, come on now,” Jack Williams said. “You boys know better than that.”
Greer and Cameron smiled softly again.
“I don’t care what those cattle and sheep people do to each other. They can kill everyone of themselves off if they’re going to be that stupid, just as long as they don’t do it in the streets of Billy.”
“That county sheriff from Brooks. Up there’s his problem. I don’t think he ever gets off his ass, not unless he’s looking for a piece of ass. Oh, God, I’ve done it again. Magic Child, when will this tongue of mine ever learn?”
Magic Child smiled up at Jack Williams. “I’m glad to be back.” She touched his hand gently.
That pleased the town marshal of Billy whose name was Jack Williams and who was known far and wide as a tough but fair man.
“I guess I’d better get along now,” he said. “Glad you’re back, Magic Child.” Then he turned to Greer and Cameron and said, “Hope you boys from Portland have a good time here but just remember,” he said, pointing at the hills. “Up there, not down here.”
Ma Smith’s Cafe
They had some fried potatoes and steaks for dinner and biscuits all covered with gravy at Ma Smith’s Cafe, and the people eating there wondered why they were in town, and they had some blackberry pie for dessert, and the people, mostly cowboys, wondered what was in the long narrow trunk beside their table, and Magic Child had a glass of milk along with her pie, and the cowboys were made a little nervous by Greer and Cameron, though they didn’t know exactly why, but the cowboys all thought that Magic Child sure was pretty and they’d sure like to fuck her and they wondered where she had been these last months. They hadn’t seen her in town. She must have been someplace else but they didn’t know where. Greer and Cameron continued to make them nervous but they still didn’t know why. One thing they did know, though, Greer and Cameron did not look like the kind of people who had come to Billy to settle down.
Greer thought about having another piece of pie but he didn’t. It was a nice thought. He really liked the pie and the thought was as good as having another piece of pie. The pie was that tasty.
They heard half-a-dozen more gunshots back off in the hills while they were finishing their coffee. All the shots were methodical, aimed and well-placed. It was the same gun firing and it sounded like a 30:30. Whoever was firing that gun really thought about it every time they pulled the trigger.
And Ma Smith
Ma Smith, a cantankerous old woman, looked up from a steak she was frying for a cowboy. She was a big woman with a very red face and shoes that were much too small for her feet. She considered herself big enough every place else without having to have big feet, so she stuffed her feet into shoes that were much too small for them, which caused her to be in considerable pain most of her walking hours and led her to having a very short temper.
Her clothes were very sweaty and stuck to her as she moved around the big wooden stove that she was cooking over on a night that was already hot enough by itself.
Cameron counted the gunshots in his mind.
1…
2…
3…
4…
5…
6…
Cameron waited to count the seventh shot, but then there was silence. The shooting was over.
Ma Smith was angrily fussing around with the steak on the stove. It looked like the last steak she was going to have to cook that night and she was very glad for that. She’d had enough for the day.
“I bet they’re killing somebody out there,” the cowboy said whose steak was being cooked. “I’ve been waiting for the killing to work its way down here. It’s just a matter of time. That’s all. Well, I don’t care who kills who as long as they don’t kill me.”
“You won’t get killed down here,” an old miner said.
“Jack Williams will make sure of that.”
Ma Smith took the steak and put it on a big white platter and brought it over to the cowboy who didn’t want to get killed.
“How does this look?” she said.
“Better put some more fire under it,” the cowboy said.
“Next time you come in here I’ll just cook you up a big plate of ashes,” she said. “And sprinkle some God-damn cow hair on it.”
Pill’s Last Love
They slept that night in Pills’ barn. Pills got them a big armload of blankets.
“I guess I won’t be seeing you tomorrow morning,” Pills said. “You’ll be off at daybreak, huh?”
“Yes,” Magic Child said.
“If you change your mind or you want some breakfast or coffee or anything, just wake me up or come in the house and fix it yourself. Everything’s in the cupboard,” Pills said.
He liked Magic Child.
“Thank you, Pills. You’re a kind man. If we change our minds, we’ll come in and rob your cupboard,” Magic Child said.
‘“Good,” Pills said. “I guess you’ll work out the sleeping arrangements OK.” That was his sense of humor after a few buckets of beer.
Magic Child had a reputation in town for being generous with her favors. Once she had even laid Pills which made him very happy because he was sixty-one years old and didn’t think he’d ever do it again. His last lover had been a widow woman in 1894. She moved to Corvallis and that was the end of his love life.
Then one evening, out of the clear blue, Magic Child said to him, “When was the last time you fucked a woman?” There had been a long pause after that while Pills stared at Magic Child. He knew that he wasn’t that drunk.