"I should be," he smiled. He was patently glad to have her for a visitor. "I am full of alcohol and opium."
She approached, glancing at the bottle on the library table. "That's the laudanum." She checked it as closely as she might have an hourglass. "Why, it's nearly gone. Won't you need more? I can telephone the doctor."
"No. That will do."
"Do?"
"It will be enough."
"Oh."
"Sit down, please." He nodded at the armchair beside the bed and changed the subject. "Have you got any new roomers yet?"
She seated herself. "No. And I even ran an ad in the paper."
"That is my fault."
"Perhaps. It's probably the sight-seers across the street, too."
"They still come?"
"Every day. At first I thought they must be the town ne'er-do-wells, but I've recognized some of our best people. Cats can look at kings, you know—alley or pedigreed."
"Thibido said we should let them in and charge admission."
She smiled. "Not very likely. Oh, here, I'm forgetting why I came." She gave him a large envelope. "From Mr. Skelly."
He opened the envelope and eased out an eight-by-ten photograph. He stared at it.
"My God," he said.
She rose to look over his shoulder.
"My God," he said. "That's not me."
There he was, posed formally, standing against the flowered wallpaper, shoulders squared, hands in trousers pockets pulling back the lapels of the Prince Albert coat sufficiently to afford a glimpse of what hung in holsters on each side of the vest. And there they were, black handle and pearl, enough of each to titillate posterity. He was a man of medium height. At the temples his brown hair was slashed with gray, as was the mustache which drooped at the comers of his mouth. But it was the face which shocked him. Fine-featured in health, it had been as ravaged by disease as had his body. It was cachectic. The skin, gray of cast, was racked taut over the skull, bringing into hideous prominence the bones of forehead, nose, cheeks, and chin. The eyes were sunken, so that it was impossible to tell what they considered, whether an enemy, a straight flush, or the advent of a civilization in which he must be anachronous.
"This is what I look like," he said, appalled.
"It must have been the artificial light," she consoled, sitting again. "And perhaps the paper, too. I'm accustomed to tintypes."
Books continued to study it. After a minute he opened the drawer of the library table, found a pencil, turned the portrait over, wrote on the back, and gave it to her.
"For you. Such as it is. It may be worth something someday."
"Why, how kind. I'm sure it will be. But isn't there someone else you'd rather give it to?"
"No."
She turned the portrait over. "For Mrs. Rogers with regards," he had written, and signed it "John Bernard Books."
She did not trust herself to speak.
"I am sorry about the candy dish," he said. "I was feeling low, and gave it a good heave. I have smashed a lot of things in my life."
"It's—it's all right."
"No. I said I would not be a burden to you. So I have shot two men in this room and chased your roomers away and smashed some glassware already. Hostetler said one morning I will wake up and not be able to get out of bed. Well, I promise not to let it go that far."
She got hold of herself. "I was delighted to see you had a lady caller yesterday. She asked me not to announce her—she wanted to surprise you. Were you surprised?"
"I was." He looked at her with a measure of amusement. "That's another thing about cats."
"What?"
"Curiosity kills them."
"If you think—"
"Her name is Serepta Thomas," he proceeded. "I lived with her for a time, eleven years ago. She left me for a freighter."
"Did you love her?"
"I did then. Now she is down and out. She asked me to marry her."
"She asked you?"
"Yes."
"Did she know about—I mean—"
"Yes. That was why she asked me. She wanted my name. And what money she could raise from it. Dobkins, the reporter, tracked her down in Tucson and had her come see me. He has a notion to write a book about me full of lies and put her name on it. Mrs. J. B. Books."
"That is despicable!" exclaimed Bond Rogers.
"No worse than the others. I am doing a land-office business these days. Skelly will be selling those pictures of me, and the undertaker intends to lay me out and show me to the public. For a price."
She was aghast. "You don't—you can't be serious!"
"I am."
"That is the most morbid, depraved—"
"There is one consolation. I am going to be a damn sight more popular dead than I have been alive."
She shook her head. "Men. And women, too. I don't know what the world is coming to. Let's not talk about it."
"All right."
The day was clouded, the room gloomy, the silence between them loud.
"How is the boy?" he asked.
"I've lost all control of him, frankly. Selling your horse was not only the most unprincipled thing he's ever done, it was actually criminal. I am stumped." She had forgotten how comforting it could be to talk to a man. It was a luxury she had been denied of late, and she let her words spill. "I can't discipline him, I can't afford to send him away, and if he doesn't soon reform himself, I can't tolerate living with him. I scarcely recognize Gillom as my son any more. He's a stranger to me. What would you do?"
"I told you. If you can, give him another father. The sooner the better."
She stirred. She longed to ask what had happened between them over the sale of the horse, in this room after she had left them together, but she did not dare. Guilt flooded her cheeks. She could not clear her mind's eye of Gillom in the parlor, on his knees, sobbing at the loss of a second father, nor exculpate herself for having been the one to tell him, to tell the secret with which she had been entrusted by a dying man.
"That's something else I would prefer not to discuss," she said, too sharply.
"Fair enough."
She was miserable. She cast about for a way to make amends. "There is a matter I've been meaning to say something about, Mr. Books." She resolved to be generous yet impersonal. "When you came, after you rented a room, I called you an 'assassin.' I regret that. I've thought about it a great deal. I realize now—the night those men came in the windows—they were here to kill you, and you had to defend yourself, anyone would. I mean, I realize now—this is how it must have been many times—you did not provoke the quarrels—men have always wanted to kill you. So I misused the word— I apologize—it is something about which I know very little— I have been sheltered—I never—"
She was in obvious distress. "By the way, Mrs. Rogers," he interjected, "my clothes are pretty roady. I would be much obliged if you could brush and press my coat and trousers. I will pay you for the time."
"Oh no," she demurred, thankful for the rescue. "I'd enjoy doing it. Are you sure you wouldn't rather have then cleaned?"
"Cleaned?"
"Yes, there's a new method now, called 'dry process cleaning.' We have several shops in El Paso."
"How long would it take?"
"They advertise next-day service. And the clothing looks like new—it's miraculous. Why don't you let me have them now? I'll take them over myself, and you'll have them back tomorrow."
"I suppose I could," he said. "I am not going out. But I don't see—"
She sprang up, coloring. "I was leaving anyway. I'll stand outside, and you hand them to me through the door."
"Very well."
Taking the portrait, she left the room and held the door ajar. Under his breath he cursed himself for requiring so long to get off the bed, get out of his trousers, get his coat from the closet, get to the door.
"Thank you," he said.