He dreamed, too, of Serepta, of making love to her and of the sound which issued from her open mouth as she neared her coming. It was like the mourning of a dove at first, an elegy for youth and strength and beauty being spent, and in the spending being lost forever; then swiftening, rising in pitch and power as she achieved orgasm, it was as though her heart were in her mouth, pulsing a song of life for him, an ululation at once tragic and exultant: la, la, la, la, la, la, la. He had never heard another woman make such a sound in sex.
He woke.
Pain woke him.
He pulled on the lamp and squinted at his watch. The laudanum had given him almost four hours.
"You'll need more and more," Hostetler had said. "It will have less and less effect."
He debated hitting the purple bottle again, decided against it.
He thought: That was a peculiar thing, Hostetler saying it before I thought of it. I would have later, probably, but I am glad he did now. There is nothing yellow about it. It makes good sense. A man is a fool to die slow if he does not have to. And I will know when to do it, too, Hostetler said I would. There will come a day. On that day I will take care of it. I am damned if John Bernard Books will go screaming.
He put his right hand on the congenial steel of the gun under his pillow, his left on that of the one at his side under the covers. He had slept with his guns for years. He wondered which of them he would use.
Books thought: No matter.
He thought: Both are friends of mine.
Jack Pulford ran the faro layout at Keating's, one of the ninety-six saloons in El Paso. He was noted for his toilet and his skill with a revolver. A singularly handsome blond man of forty or so, he was shaved by a barber, and since his hands, as he said, were the tools of his trade, and the dealing of faro required that they be on constant display, he also had the barber trim and buff his fingernails. He wore a low-cut linen vest and a clean white silk shirt every day. The shirt was set with diamond studs. He carried a small .36-caliber Smith & Wesson in an unobtrusive but businesslike holster high and handy on his right hip. Pulford was acknowledged the best pistol shot in west Texas. He could draw and fire with astonishing rapidity and accuracy, and practiced often with targets before an admiring audience on the town baseball field. It was gossiped that he had killed a man in Abilene, and a deputy sheriff in Lander, Wyoming, and although neither killing could be verified locally, they were fact.
One exploit, however, on a February night in 1899, had guilt-edged his status in El Paso. Dealing faro then at the Gem, handling both the case and cage himself, he had been accused of bracing the deck by a man named Cleo James. Pulford slapped James twice, returned his losses, and had him ejected. James took his grudge elsewhere, embellished it with liquor, obtained a gun, returned to the Gem, and began firing at Pulford as he entered the front door, much to the dismay of the clientele. It was an error of judgment compounded by the distance between him and his target. Pulford sat in the back room, the gambling room, of the saloon, framed by the doorway. James had fired four shots at him by the time the gambler rose, drew, aimed, and killed him with a single round through the heart. A bull's-eye at such long range, and under fire, was incredible. A tape measure was produced. Between the place where James fell and Pulford fired, the measure was eighty-four feet, three inches.
He was presiding at the table one night in late January, two years later, when one of the players remarked that J. B. Books was in town, holed up in a boardinghouse on Overland. But everyone knew. The game continued. And very bad off, the player added, very bad off. Dying of a cancer.
That stopped the game. The informant was closely questioned. He had it on the best authority. He'd heard it from a friend who'd heard it from Thibido himself, the marshal. Books was cashing in.
For some reason everyone glanced at Jack Pulford. "That's hard news," he said, studying the sheen of his fingernails. "There was a man I could've beat."
No one at the table doubted him out loud.
He had been taking laudanum only at night, two spoonfuls, one at bedtime, one four hours later. This afternoon the pain would not allow him to wait until bedtime. It was his first dose during the afternoon.
Relieved at once, he picked up his newspaper and began to read an article headed The Bloomerite of '01:
There is much discussion going on now in regard to woman's dress on the bicycle. A New York writer furnishes the following on the bloomer question. It's a hard question to answer. A year ago women who blushed at the mere mention of bloomers now wear them gladly, defiantly, and gracefully. True, the bloomers are almost as voluminous as skirts, but at any place frequented by women cyclists about the metropolitan district it is quite apparent that the bloomers are shrinking slowly but surely. Women talk now of the full bloomer, the three-quarter bloomer, and the half-bloomer. When the fractions get a trifle smaller, the bloomer will have shrunk into tight-fitting knickerbockers.
Black satin bloomers are a common sight on the great Brooklyn bicycle road running to Coney Island. As a matter of fact, the bloomer habit is much stronger in quiet Brooklyn than in dashing New York. Perhaps it is because…
"Come in."
Bond Rogers had knocked. "Mr. Books."
"Mrs. Rogers. What is your opinion of bloomers?"
"I beg your pardon!"
He rustled his newspaper. "I was reading about them. They have become the rage in New York City. It says that women who blushed at the mention of them a year ago now wear them 'gladly, defiantly, and gracefully.'"
She had gone as crimson as his pillow. "I came to see—" she began. "What was it? Oh yes, what you can eat. I mean, if you can have what I'm serving tonight."
"No, you didn't."
"I wish you would stop contradicting me."
"I wish you would say what you mean."
"Very well. I'm sorry about the other day, after Mr. Dobkins left. The reporter."
"After I kicked him out."
"I apologize for my lecture. It was probably unchristian of me. And also my breaking down when you told me of your—your affliction. I'm sorry. I realize no one else would take you in. So I wanted to say, I will do whatever I can for you."
"Thank you. I can eat anything. I am sorry myself that I struck your hand away. I guaranteed not to be a burden to you, and I have been too proud, most of my life, to take help from anybody. I will have to learn. Do sit down a minute."
"Well."
"Please do."
She took the straight chair. "Is the doctor sure? That you have cancer?"
"He is."
"Isn't there anything he can do?"
Books indicated the purple bottle. "He gave me that. It's a painkiller—laudanum."
"Laudanum? Isn't that habit-forming?"
"So?"
She realized. "Oh. Yes. How silly of me."
He considered her. "Mrs. Rogers, are you afraid of me?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Those guns in the closet. What you've done with them. The kind of man you are."
"Up to two months ago you'd have had every right to be. Afraid. A lot of people have been. But not now."
"I hope not."