heard himself shouting. His face, he knew, was getting red, the way it used to. “I told you not to be so snippy. I’d like to have a drink! I’m going!”
Then she was laughing at him, and he was aware of four huge eyes staring at him from the pillow. “Loud, ain’t he?” Vera Mae said, and the four eyes got normal size again. “Send the chambermaid in anyway. I want her to do something for me. That’s the lady who makes the beds, country boy.”
“I know what a chambermaid is,” Lon said, he hoped without yelling. This was the most irritating female he’d seen in a long time. He sure liked her.
And so did the kids, from the way they were grinning as she advanced on ’em in the bed, a sandwich plate in one hand, and a bottle of milk in the other . . .
It was funny, walking into a bar that way, not a care in the world. The riders she called Duke and Turk were there all right; he pushed up next to them and told the bartender, “Whatever these gents are having, and an old-fashioned for me.” He laid a five spot on the bar, and it was a long time since he’d done that. But there comes a time when a fellow can’t be a piker much longer. He’d been watching pennies an awful long time.
The rodeo riders were looking at him. Seeing he didn’t want a fight, the gray-haired one, Duke, said, “Well, thanks, Mister.”
“Gotta note for you,” Lon said. He handed it over. “From Vera Mae.”
Duke took the hotel envelope. “In the movies, a fella always says excuse me before he reads a letter. It never made any sense to me.”
Turk said, “Be a funny kind of guy that’d not read a letter. What would people send him one for, if they didn’t want him to read it?”
The bartender brought three drinks and set them down. “Thanks, Mister,” Turk said. Duke was reading the letter. Turk held Lon’s eyes, and raised his drink.
Still puzzling over the note, Duke raised his glass without looking up.
“Here’s to you, and thanks.” He drank his drink in one gulp, and said to Turk. “This here’s Lon Verdoux. Turk Lacekin. Me, I’m Duke Holloway. Vera Mae says we’re to look him over.”
“That Vera Mae,” Turk said. He took the note from Duke, said, “Excuse me, gentlemen,” and read it. He read a good deal faster than his older friend. “Yep, that’s what she says. Lon, consider yourself looked over.” He laid some money on the bar and said, “This one’s on me.”
“The hell it is,” Duke said.
“You had the one last week,” Turk said. Apparently they weren’t arguing over buying the drink. Turk shoved back from the bar, and walked toward the front of the copper-colored place.
In the back, four guys, pale but in rodeo clothes, came out through a curtain and sat down on a little platform, two of them carrying guitars and the third one a squeeze-box. They were the same ones Lon had liked out at the fairgrounds. They began to sing “Red River Valley,” and Duke bought three drinks out of Turk’s money. “You ride any?” he asked Lon.
“Not in the last ten years,” Lon said. “Me and a boy named Johnny Wheelwright traveled around some then. Southern California, Arizona, up into Colorado, and back here. I heard Johnny was still at it.”
“Seems to me I heard the name,” Duke said. “I couldn’t be sure . . . It’s a sucker kind of life. I’d like to drop a rope over my own cow sometime.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Lon said. “I ain’t no cattle baron.”
Duke laughed. “Don’t get me wrong. I never took first money at Madison Square.”
They both laughed. Lon said, “I got sixteen head, all told. Three horses to chase ’em on. Only way I make out is working for the government, summers.”
“Forest Service?” Duke asked.
Lon nodded. “If I could turn over into about ten mares, I could make money.”
Duke took a long swallow of his highball. “Never heard of anybody making money raisin’ horses.”
Lon said, “Well, I don’t like to brag unless I have to, but I’d like to give her a try.”
Turk came back and took up his waiting drink. “No trouble at all.”
Duke asked, “You her husband?”
“No,” Turk said. “Rodeo police. Told him he’d been seen with a suspect.”
“That works real good,” Duke said. “My turn to buy.”
“I thank you,” Lon said, “but I got to be upstairs. Got a couple of kids need me.”
Duke laughed. “You’ll have to fight us to get out of here. And me, I’m kind of stove-up, but Turk’s a bad man to tangle with.”
Turk shook his white hat. “Wouldn’t say that.” He thought a minute. “But Duke’s right ingenious with himself, come a tussle. Remember once, in Redding, California, how—”
“What is this, anyway?” Lon asked. “You guys drunk, or just horsing around?”
“Show him the letter,” Turk said. “Y’know, I got so much Turkish blood in me, I can’t blush. So it does me real good to see somebody else get red in the face.”
Duke thought a minute. “All right,” he said. “Of course, Vera Mae’ll lynch us.”
He handed the sheet of hotel paper over, and Lon, still looking from one to the other of them, not sure this wasn’t some sort of joke they played on country boys, took it. The bartender brought three more drinks, and took Duke’s money.
Dear Duke:—
This’ll be brought you by a guy named Lonnie Verdoux, who’ll buy you a drink. Buy him one back, but don’t get him drunk, cause I’m taking him out to supper. He is a nice guy with two kids and his wife is dead, and I don’t think he’s had much fun lately. Maybe if I do something for somebody else once in awhile, it’ll change my luck, which sure needs it.
There’s a fat faced jerk named Dutcher waiting for me in the bar. You or Turk throw him out. I’ll see you.
V.
Lon grabbed for his drink, and never felt it go down his throat.
“Boy,” Turk said. “Is he doing a good job of blushing!”
CHAPTER IV
LON FINISHED the last of his fried shrimp and pushed back from the table. “It runs good,” he said earnestly. “Even in the end of September, when the wind’s from the desert, she’s never gone dry. Mike’s after me to maybe put a dam on her, and run two, three feeder lines from other springs in, and irrigate maybe an acre of natural pasture. The SCS man told him that’d feed five, six cows, or two, three horses, but Tommy—he’s the District Ranger up there—says it won’t, that it’d take care of half that many. I dunno—” He broke off. Vera Mae was grinning at him.
He
