me in her ownself? Wait, what do you mean? Are you saying I’d have to uh—do it—with Flat Nose Sue?” Hank asked in a voice that reflected the unattractiveness of the offer. “Didn’t you say she’s the oldest one there?”
“That she is. How old you reckon she is, Prew? Fifty. Sixty, maybe?”
“Yeah, maybe sixty,” Prew answered. “I don’t think she’s any older than than sixty, maybe sixty-five. And if she is any older than that, then it ain’t by all that much.”
“But I’m only sixteen. I don’t want to do it with someone who is sixty, or maybe sixty-five years old. Couldn’t I do it with one of the younger ones?” Hank pleaded.
“You don’t want a young one for your first time,” Prew said. “You want someone who knows what to do so they can break you in proper. Besides, why are you askin’ that? You wouldn’t turn her down, would you? That would hurt her feelings. You sure don’t want to hurt Flat Nose Sue’s feelin’s because if you do that, why, you’ll piss off all the women that’s in the whore house, and they won’t none of ’em have anything to do with any of us anymore. Is that what you want to do?”
“No, I guess not,” Hank replied plaintively. “If she says I’ve got to do it with her, why, I reckon I will. Why do they call her Flat Nose Sue?”
Timmy and Prew both laughed.
“That’s right, you ain’t never seen her, have you?” Prew asked.
“No. I told you, I ain’t never been to no whore house nowhere before.”
“Well, sir, they call her Flat Nose Sue ’cause she’s done got her nose broke so many times by drunk cowboys and the like, that when you look at her sideways, it purt’ nigh looks like she don’t have no nose at all,” Prew explained.
“Oh,” Hank said, even more dispirited than before.
“But she don’t look all that bad when you are lookin’ at her from the front,” Timmy said. “’Ceptin’ for how old she is,” he added.
“Tell you what,” Prew said. “Why don’t we all go into town first thing in the mornin’ after we get off work? Seein’ as we’re goin’ to be ridin’ herd all night, it’ll be early in the mornin’ and there won’t hardly be nobody else there. We can have our pick.”
“Except for Hank,” Timmy said. “He don’t get his pick, ’cause he’ll have to lay with Big Nose Sue.”
“Yeah, but it’ll be free,” Prew said.
“You lucky dog,” Timmy said, reaching over and striking Hank playfully on the shoulder. “You’re goin’ to get it for free.”
“Yeah, I’m just real lucky,” Hank said without enthusiasm.
The colt whinnied again.
“Sounds like one of the colts might have got somewhere it shouldn’t be,” Hank said. “I’ll go take a look.”
Prew waited until Hank rode out into the darkness, then he laughed.
“We got that boy so up tight that right now you couldn’t drive a straw up his ass with a ten pound sledge hammer,” Prew said.
Timmy laughed, then asked, “You sure Flat Nose Sue will go along with it?”
“She said she would,” Prew answered. “This is going to be funnier than all hell.”
“Yeah, I reckon so. But it’s sort of a dirty trick when you think about it. Lord I hate to think of breakin’ him in with Flat Nose Sue. I mean, she could turn a fella off women for life,” Timmy said.
“She ain’t really all that bad,” Prew said.
“How do you know?” Timmy asked. Then he laughed out loud. “I’ll be damn. You’ve had her, ain’t you?” He laughed and slapped his hand against his leg. “I can’t believe you’ve actually had her. Does Jenny know that?”
“What’s Jenny got to do with it?”
“I thought you was kind of sweet on her. You always hangin’ out with her at the Sand Spur.”
“She’s s’posed to hang out with me. That’s her job.”
“It’s the job of all the girls in the Sand Spur, but she’s near ’bout the onliest one I ever see you with.”
“Maybe you got it backward,” Prew teased. “Maybe she’s sweet on me.”
“Ha! I can see that,” Timmy said.
Suddenly, their banter was interrupted by the sound of a gunshot coming from the darkness.
“What the hell is Hank shootin’ at?” Prew asked.
“I don’t know,” Timmy answered.
“Hank? Hank, what is it you are shootin’ at? A cougar?” Prew called out.
“Hank? Where you at?” Timmy called. “What the hell? Where’s Hank? How come he ain’t answerin’ us?” Timmy asked.
“Maybe we’d better go see what’s goin’ on,” Prew replied.
Timmy and Prew were both wearing guns, and though sometimes in town they liked to wear them low and kicked out in the way of a gunfighter, neither of them had ever done anything but take a few pot shots at a rabbit now and then. Nevertheless, both men drew their pistols, then rode out into the darkness to check on Hank.
Before they had gone too far, gunshots erupted in the night, the herd of horses illuminated by the muzzle flashes.
“Rustlers!” Timmy shouted.
“Let’s get out of here!” Prew said.
Firing their own pistols, even though they had no target, the two young men tried to run, but within less than a minute, both had been shot from their saddles, and once again, the night was still.
Sitting quietly in his saddle after having dispatched a few other riders to take care of business, Poke Terrell saw one of those riders, Sam Logan, appear from the darkness.
“What was the shooting?” Poke asked.
“It was just like you said. She’s got night riders out watchin’ over her herd.”
“How many of ’em was there?” Poke asked.
“They was three, but we took care of all of ’em.”
“Good. Now, round up seventy-five horses, and let’s get out of here.”
“Say Poke, I heard that these here horses is worth a hunnert dollars apiece,” Logan said. “How come we only been getting’ twenty-five dollars apiece for ’em?”
“Because to us, twenty-five dollars apiece is all they are worth.”
“Why
