He descended the steps—one and—two and—three and— four and—five; then paused again on the wooden sidewalk. The nape of his neck told him she was watching from a window.
He started. Once he had unlocked his legs, once he heard the familiar cadence of his boot heels on the sidewalk slats, once he was convinced he could indeed negotiate the nine rods, he opened himself as wide as he had the door of the house and let the world in. The day was buoyant. A ship of tropic air had voyaged inland from the Gulf of Mexico with a freight of spices, and this day on the desert was informed with a balm and sensuality that made him long to cry out, not with pain but with delight. He could not remember an afternoon more beautiful than this. It seemed to him that he had never before been so alive.
He reached the corner in two jerks of a lamb's tail, or thought he did, and waited there, nodding approbation of his feat as old men nod.
A little girl, her hair done up in ribbons, trotted along the street, rolling a hoop before her.
"Good day, madam," he said, and doffed his hat, and bowed.
She caught the hoop and stared at him, then gasped and ran away, frightened, clutching her hoop. It was his cachectic face.
Waiting, he listened. After a time it came to him, the high ringing sound, iron on iron, like that of clapper on bell, louder now, and drawing nigh.
Gillom Rogers climbed through the west window and made straight for the armchair. He tore open the envelope, unfolded the sheet of paper. He read the note to his mother. He counted the money, grinning. Then, putting money in one pants pocket, envelope and note in the other, he climbed out the window and skulked along the back of the house, turned, and stationed himself at a point from which he could spy on the corner and the man there.
Serrano, or El Tuerto, or Cross-eye, as he was more often called, entered the Constantinople at three fifty-one, accompanied by a man named Koopmann. There was a man at the bar, and the barkeep, and a pimply kid wearing two guns seated at a table in front of the wine booths at the left rear corner of the saloon. Serrano and Koopmann stepped to the bar and bought a drink. The barkeep was barely civil to them, his attitude implying that the Constantinople catered to a better class of patrons. On another occasion the pair might have taken umbrage at the slight, but they had bigger fish to fry this day.
Serrano chose a table dead center of the room, back to the wall. Koopmann sat beside him. Cross-eye pulled a Peacemaker from his belt and laid it in his lap, while Koopmann did likewise with a Navy Colt. Koopmann had for some time had business associations with Serrano, and the latter had enlisted his support this afternoon on both material and personal grounds. If he, Serrano, were laid low, he had argued, Koopmann was incapable of rustling cattle successfully by himself, so it behooved him to see that he, Serrano, retained his health and his acumen. His personal reasons El Tuerto put as logically. Some gringo cattlemen had recently declared their intention to kill him if he did not kill J. B. Books if J. B. Books did not kill him. And since he did not care to chance being killed by J. B. Books, notwithstanding the celebrated gun man's physical condition or state of mind, or by the gringo cattlemen for that matter, he declared his intention to kill Koopmann if he, Koopmann, did not assist him in killing J. B. Books.
They sipped whiskey. Koopmann, a big, clean-shaven man, wore flowered suspenders and a derby hat. Serrano watched the front doors with his right eye and with his left, the exotropic, watched Jay Cobb.
The streetcar turned the corner a block away and, like a small boat upon a lazy river, glided in dignity toward him, drawn by a somnolent mule yclept Mandy by all El Pasoans. The car was small, seating but twelve passengers, and painted bright yellow with black trim and lettering: TRANVIAS DE CIUDAD JUAREZ above the windows, the numeral 1 in the center, and El Paso & Juárez along the side. Exit was over a platform at the rear, entrance at the front, up two steps onto a platform where the boatman, or conductor, sat upon a three-legged stool, sombrero over eyes, reins in one hand, cashbox beside him.
As though it knew he wished to board, the streetcar stopped. Books mounted the platform, noted the "5¢" on the box, located the nickel in his pocket, and dropped the fare.
"I want to go to the Constantinople."
This was too many syllables for the conductor, a Charon of advanced years and innumerable miles behind the mule.
"The Connie?" Books tried.
"Ah. Con-nee. Si, señor."
Books entered the car and, placing his pillow upon the bench, seated himself. There were no other passengers. The conductor clucked, the car moved.
He had never ridden on a streetcar and, had it not been for his suffering, might have enjoyed this modern means of transport. The mule plodded, the roadbed was smooth, the roll of four iron wheels upon iron rails produced a not unpleasant monotone. On his stool the driver dozed, reins in hand, resting in peaceful certitude that neither buggy nor bicycle nor eccentricity of nature would stay his partner from the slow but sure completion of his appointed rounds. It seemed spring, but it was not, for the mulberry trees along the street did not as yet show bud.
The car stopped, and another passenger boarded, paid her fare, and seated herself near Books but opposite. She was dainty, and blond, in her middle twenties, and he believed her at once the loveliest girl he had ever seen. He twisted sideways and put an elbow out the window, the better to admire her. There was dew upon her lips; under his gaze her lashes beat like wings. She wore a long dress of lavender silk, with leg o' mutton sleeves. White lace foamed from her cleavage to her throat and garnished her skirt. She crossed her legs, affording him a glimpse of white stocking, a shapely ankle, and white high-button shoes. Adorning her blonde tresses was a hat of white straw which bloomed with lavender carnations. She carried a white parasol upon which no drop of rain would presume to fall. She could have been the darling of the town's most affluent family or the costliest jewel of a parlor house—it was impossible to say. To the critical observer, her beauty might have been flawed by the livid bruise upon her cheek, but only a little.
A block behind the streetcar Gillom Rogers followed, keeping interval with steady pace.
Since the afternoon was unseasonably warm, the doors were open and, entering the Constantinople, Jack Pulford stopped short.
The barkeep looked at him, then at Jay Cobb, then at Serrano and Koopmann, then at Pulford again, and aware, suddenly, that an event of some enormity was about to take place upon his premises, froze, glass in hand, polish cloth in glass.
The gambler stood almost at attention. The Constantinople was new, prices were higher than elsewhere, and he had expected to have the saloon, except for the barkeep, to himself. The three patrons looked at him, recognized him. He looked at them. The young two-gun tough he did not recognize, nor the man in the derby. Serrano he did. He took in their positions, too, relative to the doors behind him, to the archway at the rear, and to each other. He reflected. Maturity whispered that discretion was the better part of valor, impulse shouted to turn and walk out while there was time. Instead, having made a choice, he stepped left and took a chair at a table in the front so that he had a full sweep of the room.