I’d read all about him in the newspapers, of course—from all the early editorial hoorah about what a fine model of upstanding citizenship he’d made of himself during all those years in prison, to the recent story accusing him of holding up a card game in the Gem Saloon. And I’d heard the talk going around—that he hadn’t done much business as a lawyer in the two months he’d been in town; that he was drinking like a drowning man every night; that he sometimes didn’t stagger home till dawn, mumbling to himself. And that damn near every man in town was scared to death of him.
I told myself that if any lawyer could understand Martin’s situation it had to be him. But that was only what I told myself. The truth was, I wanted to see him up-close. I wanted to know if he’d ever really been what they said he’d been. I was curious about him, what else can I say? Oh, hell—I guess I had the yens for him before I ever met him, it’s simple as that.
He damn sure got some yens of his own when I showed up at his office next day and he took a good look at me. But he knew how to play the gentleman. He showed me to a chair facing his desk and prepared cups of coffee for us from a tray he’d had brought up from the cafe next door. He wore an impeccable black suit and smelled freshly barbered. It was fascinating to watch those large scarred hands stirring a teaspoon, jotting an occasional note with a fountain pen, or stroking his mustaches as I told him about Martin’s predicament. All the while I was talking, his gray eyes drifted over me like smoke. I never wore a corset. I knew how interesting a man could find the contours of my shirtwaist and the way my skirt clung to my lap. I’d been getting yearning looks from men from the time I was twelve. But there was something more than that in his eyes, something beyond just wanting to touch me. At first I thought it might be loneliness, but I came to find out it wasn’t that, not exactly, not in the way most people mean it, anyhow. I can’t say what it was, only that it was always there, right from the start of—what shall I call it? our liaison—from the start of our liaison till the time I last saw him, less than two months later.
He listened to me tell about Martin’s problem without once interrupting me. I hadn’t meant to tell him everything—not about the money Martin left with me, for instance, or the envelope he’d put in his coat—but I did. Every time I stopped talking, he’d stare at me like he could see right into me, and I’d start right up again, until finally I’d told him all of it.
He said he could likely get a judge to write up some kind of protective order, but added that such legal restraint would really be useless. “Legalities don’t mean much to the men he’s dealing with,” he said. “They are the law. If they believe he has money which belongs to them, they’ll get it from him or know the reason why.”
I asked him what should I do. That depends, he said. On what, I said. On how much you love your husband, he said. For a minute we just stared at each other. I swear I could smell the smoke in his eyes. “Well,” I finally said, “sometimes I’m just not sure. “He smiled and said, “I admire your candor, Mrs. McRose.” I smiled back and said, “Yes, and that’s not the only thing about me you’ve been admiring, Mr. Hardin.”
My heart jumped in my throat as he came around the desk, took me by the wrists, and pulled me to the couch. He pushed me on my back and yanked up my skirt. Up went my legs, off went my underclothes, down went his trousers. His hardness slipped into me so smooth and deep and fine I didn’t even know I was howling with pleasure till his hand went over my mouth. “Damn, woman,” he said between grunts, “they’ll think it’s murder going on up here!” I laughed and came at the same time—which was a first for me.
A few minutes later—our breathing still ragged, our faces hot, our bodies cramped and sweaty and crushed together on that narrow couch—we grinned at each other and kissed for the first time.
* * *
The problem, Wesley said, was that Scarborough and Selman might find out I was holding some of the money.
“Would they harm me?” I asked—as if I didn’t know. He looked up at me and said, “Only as much as they have to in order to get their money.”
It was the afternoon of the same day, and we were naked in his bed in the Herndon Lodging House. He was lying on his back, his head and shoulders propped up by a pillow, and I was astraddle him, slowly working my hips and feeling him deep inside me. An empty bourbon bottle glinted on the floor in the sunlight slanting through the window, and a half-full bottle stood beside the bed. On the little writing table by the window was the stacked manuscript of his book, his life story. He’d been writing on it every day, he told me, and was close to finishing.
We’d been at it all day—both the humping and the drinking—and neither of us had had nearly enough. “What should we do,” I asked him, and rolled my hips wickedly. He growled with pleasure and plucked at my nipples. “That depends,” he said, “on how much you love your husband.” We both laughed out loud. And at the same thing.
The next morning Vic Queen showed up on my front porch and said Martin wanted me to go to Juárez right away. I thanked him for the message and started to close the door, but he blocked it with his boot. “He means right now,” he said.
I had a hangover like a railroad spike in my skull and was in no mood for an argument. I excused myself for a moment and left him standing in the foyer while I went to the bedroom and got the loaded Remington revolver I kept under my pillow. I went back to the front room with the gun behind me, then brought it around and aimed it with both hands squarely in Vic Queen’s face. “Get out of my house, you son of a bitch!” I said. “And I mean right now!”
He raised his hands to his shoulders and backed out onto the porch. He said, “Marty’s gonna be damn mad, Beulah.” I slammed the door shut and watched him through the window as he stomped off down the street toward the river.
When I saw Wes in his room later in the day and told him what had happened, he said not to worry, that he’d had a talk with George Scarborough that morning and Martin wouldn’t be a problem much longer. He poured two drinks and handed me one. “Hair of the mangy mutt,” he said, and we touched glasses and drank.
I had a pretty good idea what he meant about Martin, but I figured it was best not to ask too many questions. What you don’t know can’t implicate you as an accomplice. The whiskey sparked in my brain and bloomed in my belly like a little fire flower. Wes pulled me to him, ran his hands over me from neck to hipbone, and bit my lower lip. Then our clothes were sailing through the room and we were laughing and grabbing at each other and falling into bed in a naked tangle of arms and legs and tongues.
They shot Martin dead on our side of the Mexican Central railroad bridge. Milton and Scarborough and a Ranger named Frank McMahon. Milton told the newspapers Martin was wanted for cattle rustling and had been hiding out in Mexico. He said he’d gotten a tip that Martin and some of his “gang” would be crossing into El Paso on the night of June 19 to commit a robbery, and he had set a trap for him.
“The fugitive resisted our attempts to arrest him peaceably,” Milton said. “We were forced to defend ourselves when he drew his weapon and opened fire.”
Yeah sure. Wes looked at the newspaper over my shoulder and said, “Damn shame. Like the man says, crime does not pay.” I looked up and said, “Not if you’re dead, it doesn’t.”
We were the only two at Martin’s funeral. A few days later I received a package with Martin’s effects. It contained his clothes, his gunbelt and empty holster, his boots, and an envelope with thirteen dollars. By then I’d moved in with Wes in the Herndon House, and everybody knew I was his woman.